


Impetus ad Hominem: A Love Story in its Second Act

by Mthaytr



Series: Limits Of Control: the BDSM Love Stories [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: BDSM, D/s, M/M, Plot With Porn, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:12:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 252,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mthaytr/pseuds/Mthaytr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward is eighteen.  Roy was his commanding officer.  Edward enjoys getting tied up, and likes it even better when Roy does it.  The situation could be misunderstood even by those with the best intentions.</p><p>Not everyone has the best intentions.</p><p>Alternately, the "What if Roy and Ed really <i>were</i> caught out?" fic.</p><p>Sequel to <i>The Limits of Control: A BDSM Love Story.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Edit 12/31/14: I would just like to request that anybody who just arrived here please not read this just yet XD I am about to do a major rewrite of the first two chapters (at least) that will drastically improve them. I reread them the other day and realized that anybody who has made it through this mess to get to the good stuff later is a fucking saint, and if you are by chance re-reading this (as some readers have informed me they do), then bless you.
> 
> Anyway, please be patient with me! This is not going to be a short edit, but I hope that if/when you do return, it will be more intelligible and more elegant and all around better. <3 Thanks!
> 
>  
> 
> \---  
> Hi guys!
> 
> And after five months of absence, or something, I'm back with a totally accidental monster of a sequel to my last fic, _The Limits of Control_. I hope everybody who read it hasn't forgotten about it by now...
> 
> I'll say this for the benefit of anyone who hasn't read the last one, but if you did, you know the rules: there's gonna be porn. There's gonna be kinky porn. There are going to be dom/sub relationships, whipping, masturbation, erotic asphyxiation, pain play of all kinds, collars, exhibitionism, and also - this is a new one! - sex with multiple partners. If this turns you on, then sally forth! If it squicks you, there's a lovely back button that you can, and should, use to its fullest extent.
> 
> However, there won't be nearly as much porn this time, and there will be considerably more of that serious material we got into last time. Be forewarned. Edit: In fact, due to some readers' concerns, I want to make sure everyone is aware that there will be content that may actually disturb and upset some people -- there will be references to and discussion of real-world issues, including but not limited to homophobia, hate crimes, police brutality, and sexual assault. If you want to stay away from that kind of stuff, then read no further.
> 
> But if you like a good story with heavy plot and intrigue (and porn thrown in here and there) then please, continue!
> 
> 88,000-ish words so far, and I've got a ways to go yet. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

**Chapter 1**

*

Summer was rarely a pleasant time in the heartland of Amestris, and this year had been worse than most.  The heat had been brutal as a stroke, turning any metal left unattended into an accidental brand.  Even Edward's arm became a deadly weapon if left in the sunlight too long, which Roy had discovered and re-discovered several times over the course of the season, much to his dismay.  

Heat, Roy maintained, was much worse than cold, because at least when it was cold you could bundle yourself up -- that, and his bed was quite warm, as was the person he often shared it with, and there were lots of things they could do together that made the cold quite irrelevant. Heat, though -- there was hardly anything you could do about the heat.  The Fuhrer's office, having recently seen the installation of something magical called "air conditioning," was the only place in the city you could go to cool down.  

You could only show up there with so many excuses, though, before people started to question your motives.  So, reluctantly, Roy constrained his skiving to his own office, and became an expert at making fans out of errant paperwork, a skill which was much in demand for a generous portion of the summer.

It hadn't all been bad, if he was being fair.  It had resulted in a rather appealing change of wardrobe for his lover, which he would never complain about.  The excess heat had begun to affect even Edward, who had eschewed his many layers in favor of going around in only tank tops.  He failed to notice that these, which had been a slim fit even back years ago, were quite a bit smaller on him these days.  This pleased Roy deeply, so he wasn't about to say anything about it.  It was quite worth dealing with an extra tightness in his uniform trousers for a not insignificant portion of the day if it meant seeing Ed like that.

The change in Edward really was remarkable.  When he had been Fullmetal, he had been known to wear three layers and gloves in the desert just to keep anyone from seeing his arm -- to see him baring it to the world without hesitation now made Roy's heart swell in a way he had gotten very good at ignoring.

He was not the only one to notice Edward blossoming into the prime of manhood, though.  The two had attended -- at Roy's request, then insistence -- a number of parties and soirees and other such social engagements together, which gave the general the best position from which to observe young ladies fawn over him, to his distress. 

This hardly made Roy jealous. In fact, he mostly treated it as a kind of observer's sport, like horse racing.  First they would make an overture, which Ed would not notice.  Then, someone else would arrive with the same intention in mind, which apparently signalled the beginning of their mating displays, which he also did not notice.  Then came the blunt suggestions, which Edward would have to be deaf and blind not to notice, but which also terrified him more than a little bit.

Usually, Roy took it upon himself to rescue his lover at that point, and swept in to pile charm on the ladies in question until they forgot which way was up.  Then, he would take Edward by the elbow, find some nice, secluded nook in the garden or library, and show Ed how much he appreciated those fancy clothes.

It had nothing whatsoever to do with staking his claim, and he would deny it to the death if asked.

But the women Edward came in contact with in the rest of his life were apparently much more tenacious than that, and had taken more active roles in pursing their romantic interests.  Some even went so far as to court him.  Even Edward's considerable obliviousness would not allow him to ignore such unsubtle and repeated advances, though they necessarily confused and agitated him. Roy, of course, found this adorable.

“I swear to god, Roy, this chick just has no idea when to let up!” he growled one night, lying atop Roy's covers beside the man, glaring up at the ceiling. “She's asked me to dinner prob'ly five times, and every time I say no it's like it bangs off some metal wall inside her head. It might even make her _more_ determined to catch me. It's like I'm a fucking trout or something – she'll only be satisfied when she has my head on a wall.”

Roy laughed, running the knuckles of his fingers up and down the skin of Ed's neck.  He enjoyed Ed's neck: it was possibly the last place on the man with any softness left to it.

Roy had met the girl in question: she was a PhD student in the biological sciences, unusually gregarious for someone in her profession, and currently a researcher in Edward's lab. Roy had quite liked her, actually, and apparently she quite liked Ed. According to Ed she did good work, too -- her chief failing seemed to be that the single-minded tenacity which made her such an asset in the lab also applied in relationships. This, Roy knew from experience, was much less useful than it would seem.

Making the matter worse, the woman didn't know that Ed was quite thoroughly taken, and quite regularly also, over every possible surface.  They were hardly hiding their relationship, but if nobody thought to ask, they didn't usually volunteer the information, either. Mostly, this suited them fine –  they didn't have to deal with questions or tasteless innuendos (Roy's innuendos were always classy, thank-you), there were no awkward conversations or explanations. The one downside of this approach was that it did tend to lead to the misconception that Ed was what others liked to call an “eligible bachelor.”

The general wasn't at all jealous. In fact, he loved listening to Edward wail about his women troubles: it was somehow quite encouraging. He gained a nearly sadistic satisfaction from seeing them want him when they could never have him, from knowing that he was the only person who knew how Ed looked with his unbound hair all splayed out on the pillows, who had seen him flushed and panting, had heard how his voice cracked when he finally gave in and begged.

“Have you tried just telling her that you're not interested?" he murmured, deeply amused.   "That you're in a relationship?”  As always, such practical suggestions seemed to blindside the younger man.

“Well, not in so many words, no,” said Edward after a moment, scowling. Roy combed fingers through his lover's hair. “I've been trying that thing you . What's it called? Oh, that's right, _tact,_ ” snapped Edward, probably more sarcastically than he had intended.

“And doing admirably at that so far,” Roy said with some amusement. He was far beyond the point where such callousness on his lover's part had any effect on him. “Never in my life have I heard such tact and grace.  Well done."

Ed blushed, eyes flickering over to Roy for just a second.

“Sorry. I meant to say that nicer.”

“Of course you did," Roy said, and that was exactly Edward's problem. "Luckily, I don't mind," he added, gently scratching Edward's skull.  He pressed his lips together as if determined not to let on that he enjoyed it, but there are some battles you've lost before you even started.  "And that segues nicely into my point.  There is a reason that you avoid tact when possible, and that reason is that you are very, very bad at it. Subtlety is not your domain," he added, enjoying the way Ed's cheeks pinked further.  "Rather than trying to be tactful -- not that I'm suggesting you be rude, mind you -- I suggest pretending she's you're brother or me and speaking to her like you would us.  Except preferably without the expletives."  Roy, at least, found this funny, although Ed didn't seem to agree. "We can practice together if you want," he added, lips twitching up into an accidental smirk.

Edward rolled his eyes and huffed, the noise either irritation or amusement.

“I dunno why I let you be all patronizing like that, asshole. I get no respect at all.”

“Very simple,” said Roy, running his fingers down his lover's chest, slipping the hand under the covers to rest at the waistband of Ed's boxers. “It's because you know I'm right. And,” he added, smiling, “because I give fantastic blowjobs. If I were ever to somehow tragically lose the use of my tongue, though, well -- that would be the end of us.”

Ed laughed then, and turned a smile on his lover that made Roy warm all the way through.

“Not true,” said Edward, pressing a kiss to the corner of Roy's mouth. “If you couldn't use your tongue, you wouldn't be able to talk, and then you wouldn't be half so smarmy. I think it'd be a big improvement.”

“Hm, do you?” asked Roy, then placed a kiss on Ed's neck, his collarbone; pulled back the sheets and did the same to his chest, his stomach. “Well, let me remind you what you would be missing.”

Roy's tongue really was very talented, and so was the rest of him, and he didn't bother to be modest about it.  

It was with a distinct gratification that he noted that Ed had gotten hard already, just from his words and that brief drag of skin. He might tease Edward about how young he was, how easily aroused, but in truth Roy was always immensely flattered by the fact that he could turn his young lover on so easily. While men and women all over the city clamored in vain for Ed's attention, Roy had only to deliver an order – or even a suggestion – to have the Fullmetal Alchemist quivering with anticipation in his bed.

He didn't pull down Ed's boxers yet: the most pleasurable part of sex was the tease, the long slow wait before the sudden drop. He placed a light kiss at the waistband, moved up to flicker tongue over navel, tasting sweat-sharp skin, then slid to the side to suck at the sensitive hollow of Ed's hip. The blonde squirmed, made a tiny noise that Roy took to be encouragement. Out came the tongue again: licking, stroking, pleasuring.

Roy bit down there, right by the hip, and Ed moaned, his cock throbbing behind the thin cloth that separated them. Sliding down, smirking, he mouthed the outline of Ed's cock through the cloth, savoring the feel of it, the way Ed made tiny, tiny thrusting motions with his hips. Down again, further, past the bend where hip met leg, down the inside of his hard-muscled thighs to his knees.

Ed gave a weak laugh that was at least half a whimper.

“Come on, what're you fuckin around for? Just get on with it already,” he snapped, fisting his hand in Roy's hair almost painfully. Roy didn't move his lips, too entranced with tasting the flicker of Ed's pulse in the artery below his knee, but he heard the man's plea: he brought up a hand to grind the heel of it into Edward's straining crotch. A deep breath caught on a moan, and Roy increased the pressure – Edward's thrusting became more insistent – and then Roy pulled his had away entirely. Ed made another little noise, needy and bereft.

“Oh god, you're teasing me? What the fuck did I ever to do deserve this?”

“Well,” began Roy, licking up his lover's thigh, “among many other things, you looked drop dead gorgeous in a tank top, and without any effort at all made half of the city fall hopelessly in lust with you. I love the fact that no matter how many people try to get you into their beds, I'm the only one who can make you whimper and beg.”

Edward did whimper then, to Roy's great pleasure. The blonde collected himself just enough to make a sentence:

“Not – mm, jealous?” he asked. Roy grazed teeth across the artery on the inside of Ed's leg, suckled gently.

“To the contrary. I love watching other people want you. It reminds me what a supernova I have in the palm of my head. Makes me grateful for you.” Hard lips pressed kisses up the inside of his leg, and Ed was very nearly wriggling in frustration now. Then, against Ed's skin: “Keeps me humble.”

A breathy, barking laugh.

“Liar. You just like knowing that you're better than everyone else. You've never been humble in your life.” That earned a laugh: then, finally, the general pulled down the waistband of his younger lover's boxers. His erection bobbed free, and Ed hissed.

“Am I?” Roy asked, then gave a quick lick to the head of Edward's cock, too light to be anything but frustrating, he knew. Ed groaned, but knew better than to take his pleasure into his own hands. “Better than everyone else, that is.”

“Smug bastard,” said Edward, without much vigor. “Fucking get on with it before I do something you're gonna regret.”

“Now, Edward –” a light brush to the velvety skin of the man's balls “– is that how we ask for things?”

Ed laughed again, and ran a hand through his hair in deep frustration, turning his head to the side until his neck corded, each muscle displayed in prominent relief. The sight shot straight to Roy's groin.

“Son of a bitch. Okay, fine. Please,” he said, short and insincere. 

“Come on, Edward, you can do better than that.”

He kissed the tip of Ed's erection gently, _so_ gently, then ghosted more of the same down the underside. Edward was rocking into the air in earnest now, and Roy was sure he didn't mean to make the tiny rough noises that were coming out of his mouth.

“Please,” he said again, his voice hoarse, ready to break. A pause. “Please, master,” he said, with more than just a hint of sarcasm.

Roy's body didn't even care a little bit about the sarcasm: he responded to the words with an instant rush of heat that hit him like a wall. The sincerity didn't matter – hearing that word from Ed's mouth was pure fantasy. Roy groaned, fisted the sheets with his unoccupied hands, and swallowed Ed's cock down.

The sudden overload of sensation made Ed cry out, his body rolling up to meet his lover's mouth as his hands trembled, strained. One of the things that Roy loved most about their sex was just how responsive his young lover was. Every pitched breath, every unstifled moan that escaped the blonde's lips just made Roy ache. Another swirl of his tongue brought Ed's hips upward, off the bed, thick cock sliding, sweet, through Roy's mouth.

“Mmm,” said Edward, on an open-mouthed groan, “you like hearing me say that? Dirty fuckin' bastard.” The words came out of his mouth as a litany, a prayer, an oath. Roy smiled and licked the shaft of his lover's cock.

“Call me that again,” said Roy, words rumbled against the sensitive skin at the tip. “Only, seriously this time.”

“What, bastard? I call you that all the time.”

“No,” said Roy, putting on his voice of authority, his cloak of power. He didn't say anything more. He hovered there, refusing to move to touch Edward's quivering length.

There was a brief silence: Ed looked at him with clouded eyes, half-lidded in lust, lips parted and flushed with his pounding blood.

“Okay,” he said, after a moment. “Please let me come, master. Please.”

“Why should I?” Roy said, keeping himself tantalizingly close. Ed's response hadn't been enough, but still his cock was throbbing.

“Because I'm gonna go crazy over here if you don't,” said Edward with a strained laugh.

“I'm not convinced. In fact, I'm considering just stopping altogether,” Roy said, sitting up and away from Ed's body. “You disappoint me.”

“ _Don't,_ ” said Edward, his voice cracking, and in that moment sounded so needy and bereft and completely _broken_ that Roy felt a shot of euphoria through his whole body. “Please, master. I'll do anything.”

Roy groaned. That was it, what he had been looking for: that magical tone of voice, the absolute subservience that made Roy so fucking hard he couldn't stand it.

“Get the lube, then. I'm going to fuck you until you come screaming.”

Edward made a small, high noise and reached over to the nightstand for the container of lube. “Now,” started Roy again, pulling his own boxers down to free his erection and beginning to stroke it, “prepare yourself for me, so I can watch.”

“Yes, master,” said Ed, the word choked in his throat but managed nonetheless. He coated a finger in the fluid, then brought his hand down even as he spread his legs, bent them at the knee to allow Roy a better view.

Roy had a sudden vision of Edward tied up like that, his legs bound as far apart as they would go, utterly exposing his most delicate parts to all present. And in this brief fantasy, there were others present: a group of men watched him, touching themselves, eyes hungry, hands greedy –

And then he was back in the moment, because Ed had begun to let his slick finger circle around his entrance, let his eyes fall shut – then, as he slid the finger inside of himself, he let out a deep, wanton moan.

“Yes,” said Roy, the word almost hissed. “Do you like that?” A faint nod from Edward, accompanied by a short whine as the finger began to move inside of him. Roy watched, enraptured. “Do you do this to yourself, when you're alone? Shove your hands down the back of your pants and fuck yourself on your fingers?”

A whimper escaped Ed, even as he pressed his lips together. He breathed hard through his nose, then opened his mouth again.

“Yes,” he said, in that same pitiful way, and it was all that Roy could do not to just shove himself into the other man right then, to hell with preparation or anything.

“What do you think about?” Roy asked, savoring each image, both visual and mental.

“About you,” said Edward, then cried out and bucked his hips up as his fingers hit that spot inside of him. “About you, whipping me.”

Roy's cock wouldn't be ignored anymore, and he pumped his closed hand down its length.

“Mm, pleasuring yourself while you imagine me hurting you. You're such a dirty thing, aren't you? You'd do anything to get me to touch you,” Roy said, stroking his lover's leg as he watched those two fingers, thrusting into him, finding an unsteady rhythm. He added a third finger, and after a moment, pulled his eyes open to fix the older man in his gaze.

“I'm ready. Come on, fuck me,” said Edward, a demand born of desperation.

Roy smoothed a hand along the inside of Ed's thigh, then lined himself up at the younger man's entrance.

“So demanding. My little slut,” he purred, and slid in on the last word. Ed gasped, short and hard, almost loud enough to muffle Roy's own noise. If he could have made the sensation of that first thrust last for the rest of his life, he would have.

“God, Edward,” he said, voice rough-grained, letting himself break character to bend over and suck Ed's neck, twisting the hard pebble of his nipple between his fingers. Ed squirmed – Roy loved the way he writhed, unsure which direction to go, which pleasure to push into. He slid his lips up to Ed's ear and bit down: then, he was moving, taking in every beautiful sensation, sweaty bodies rocking together: Roy knew he had hit Edward's sweet spot when the man gave a pitched sob, screwed his eyes shut, moved his hand up to his own dripping cock, and began to stroke in time to Roy's thrusts. His hot tongue flickered out over the juncture of neck and shoulder, then replaced Ed's hand with his own, squeezing it, loving the steady throb and the way Ed moved his body to meet each motion.

Then, without warning, Ed's body went rigid, and he was coming, hard, all over Roy's stomach and his own: his keening wail sent shivers all the way down the general's body – an unendurable pleasure swept over him – and then Roy was coming, too, in a blinding flash – and then, together, they were still.

They lay there, warmth and arms wrapped around each other, for a moment: Roy breathed in the smell of them, listened to his lover's breathing as it calmed, slowed. Then, Roy kissed his lover, chaste and long, and rolled off.

“Mmm,” said Edward.

“Mm,” agreed Roy, taking a hand up to run it through Ed's hair. The man gave a lazy sort of smile.

“Thought you were gonna show me how awesome your tongue is,” said Edward, dryly.

“I got somewhat distracted,” said Roy, returning the expression. “I would be happy to give you another demonstration later, if you like. I am confident in my ability to convince you of my skill.”

Ed laughed.

“You never do give up, do you.”

“Coming from you, I'm going to take that as a tremendous compliment.”

“You do that,” said Edward, and Roy could have been forgiven for thinking that the way he didwas almost fond.

Then, the younger man shifted enough that the two were barely-but-not-really touching, enough that they could be close while still allowing him plausible deniability if he was asked whether he had planned it that way. Roy smiled, and said:

“With pleasure.”

After a long moment, something broke through the calm between them: Roy almost drew his hand away from Ed's hair when he sensed a sudden tension, but then Ed looked at him and said:

“Did you mean what you said earlier?”

Roy's brow furrowed as he considered the question. He couldn't imagine what Ed meant.

“I'm sorry, it escapes me what you might be referring to. Care to clarify?”

Ed flushed, turned his head a bit more to look down at the mattress, although even that couldn't hide the flush that stained his cheeks.

“I mean, all that stuff about supernovas and shit.”

Roy remembered then, and almost laughed – for Edward's sake, he didn't. He didn't want Ed to think that he was being mocked or something like that. Hardly. It was just so astonishing that Edward would be so blind to his own brilliance.

Edward lit up everything around him so intesnesly that everyone around him seemed to glow just by blessing of their proximity, and all he could see was how bright they shone.

Every day, the knowledge of just what Roy had in his bed, warm and willing – of just who he could call at the end of the day to talk alchemical theory or anything at all – humbled Roy, and made him grateful. He deserved nothing like Edward Elric, but he wasn't penitent enough to throw away a blessing like that when life had so wonderfully handed it to him.

He pulled the other man closer, and said:

“Oh, Edward, you have no idea. Of course I meant it.”

*

Academically, Roy knew that Ed could awaken early when he so chose, but in daily life this was much more legend than it was fact.  However, that day, when Major General Roy Mustang strode into his office at 8:45 in the morning, Edward was already there, his feet kicked up on Roy's desk and his hands laced together in his lap.

“You're in early,” said Roy, slipping his jacket off and hanging it on the rack by the door.

“G'morning to you, too. And I'm not really in early, I'm in late – haven't been home yet. Needed to watch some experiments all night.” Well, that explained that, then. “I had some time to kill waiting for some lab techs to finish testing the variations, so I came up here, and guess what I found?”

“Havoc having sex with one of the secretaries on one of the office tables,” Roy guessed, walking over to his own desk and sitting down on the edge, as his own seat was currently occupied.

“Nope, I – wait, what?” Ed made a face. “Is that... is that a thing that's happened?”

“Probably. I was just hazarding a guess. But do tell.”

“Gah, I'm never touching the desks outside again,” Edward said, looking genuinely traumatized.

“You and I have had sex in here. I don't see how that's any different.”

“Yeah, but you're not Havoc. Makes all the difference in the world, see.”

Roy laughed.

“Yes, I can see that. So what _did_ you find?”

“Your planner. And guess what? You, Roy Mustang, have a clear schedule,” said Edward, making no move to get out of the general's chair, his grin fierce and wide and giving nothing at all away.

Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Are you usually in the habit of checking my work schedule before I come in? Is your life just so boring that you need to live vicariously through mine?”

“Asshole,” Ed replied, cheerily. “I read your schedule to keep up on your life. If you can keep tabs on me, I can keep tabs on you.”

“Perhaps, except one of us can keep it a secret,” said Roy, smirking, the combination of which made Ed scowl. It was cute, Ed trying to play Roy's game, and even cuter that he played it badly.

“Fuck you. I could have kept it a secret if I wanted to. I just don't want to.”

“I keep hoping you'll grow more polite over the years, but you dash my hopes once again. Also, could you? You're not really known for your tight lips – metaphorically speaking, anyway,” Roy added, his smirk growing briefly suggestive before flattening out into a more neutral smile. “Now, if you'd remove yourself from my chair, I'd be grateful.”

Ed snorted and swung his feet down from Roy's desk.

“You should know better by now than to pin any kind of hopes on me,” he said, standing and crossing his arms, but never losing the look of amusement.. “You just keep getting disappointed. And you're not gonna get any kind of lips, tight or otherwise, if you keep bein a jackass.”

“Disappointment does get a bit tiresome, I must admit, although I have yet to give up on you,” Roy said, fondly, as he moved over to take his proper seat, noting with half disgust and half amusement that Ed had left a heel-shaped ring of mud on his desk. He swept it off with a handkerchief, but said nothing about it – to his credit, he thought. “And I have no fear that you'll cut me off from sexual gratification. You like it too much yourself.”

Ed now moved his rather stunning ass to the desk instead of Roy's chair.  He studied the older man, his arms crossed loosely in front of him. There was an odd sparkle in his eye, a strange lightness to the young blonde that seemed out of place, given the trajectory of their conversation. Shouldn't he be fuming by now?

That knowing smile was about to drive Roy mad. Even the fact that his inbox was strangely empty of paperwork just made the whole thing that much more infuriating.

“Alright, out with it. I grant that my empty planner is strange, but it hardly seems justification for you coming in here and grinning at me like a maniac. So what else is going on? Have you planned something for me today?” he asked, half worried and half hopeful.

“Nope, guess again.”

“Major Hawkeye has taken her once-per-decade sick day, and I'm free to frolic till my heart's content?”

“Nope.”

“You plan to steal me away from my work and have erased all of the meetings on my planner for that reason.”

“You're a bad guesser,” Ed replied, with some glee.

“Well, you aren't giving me very much to go on. And that's it, I'm out of guesses. So what is it?”

Ed grinned.

“You may have to wait a whole five minutes to find out. In't that just gonna drive you crazy?”

Roy groaned: he hated it when Edward decided that he wanted to be a tease. Well, “hated” might be a bit of a strong word.

That was when a sharp knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Riza Hawkeye did not wait for an invitation, but opened the door, took a few paces in, then stopped to give Roy a smart salute. Ed turned to watch her entrance.

“Good morning, sir. Edward,” she added with a bit of a smile.

“Morning,” replied Ed, and Roy gave his own greeting.

“It's rather unusual for you to be here so early, Ed,” she noted, then crossed the rest of the room to Roy's desk.

“Yes, well. It's a very unusual day,” said Edward. Riza gave him an appraising look: then, after a moment, a nod of understanding.

“So how did you find out?”

“That it was today? Well, walked in here and saw that Mustang's planner was all cleared out for the day. But about it in general? Al was doing some serious listening, and when he heard, he let me in on it.”

“Have you told him already, then?”

“I'm feeling strangely left out of this conversation,” Roy muttered. “Especially considering that it seems to be about me.”

They continued to ignore him, though Ed's lips quirked irrepressibly upward.

“Nah, I didn't want to steal your thunder. He's all yours, Major,” Edward said, sliding off of Roy's desk to stand by the side and watch, his braid falling over his shoulder and his golden eyes focused.

Hawkeye took an envelope out from under her left arm and held it in front of her, in both hands. She extended it towards him: his eyebrows shot up as he recognized the Fuhrer's seal on the front. He sent her a questioning look: she just smiled. Unwilling to wait any longer, he tore the envelope open and pulled out the papers inside.

He stared at it for a moment in silence.

_It is hereby our decree that on September 14, 1921, at 10:00 hours, Major General Roy Mustang is to report to the Office of the Fuhrer in dress uniform for his promotion to the rank of General of the Amestrian Army._

_This, by the order of Fuhrer Hakuro, and signed by his hand._

Roy set the paper down on his desk carefully, then looked up to each of the others in turn.

“See? I can keep a secret better than you thought,” said Edward, proudly. Roy laughed.

“Congratulations, sir,” Hawkeye said, folding her hands behind her. She had seen him all the way from the fires of Ishbal to this point, and he could not have asked for a better friend or soldier, subordinate or partner.

“Yeah, congratulations,” said Edward, that bright little fireball that had spun into their orbits and changed all of their lives, that genius who had saved everyone in the country and gotten little and less recognition for it, but asked for none. They were two of the most remarkable people he had ever met, and their faith in him, their pride in him, meant more to him than anything else ever could.

The star was one more stepping stone on the road to victory.

“Thank you both,” he said, rising to his feet. “But there's no room here for complacency. Onwards and upwards. I'm headed to the top.”

Ed grinned, sharp and dangerous.

“You bet your ass you are.”

*

“That extra star is fucking sexy,” said Edward, the words growled into Roy's neck that night as Ed's fingers clutched at the older man's back. He licked, tasting the salt of the General's skin and the faint tang of his scented aftershave.

“You think so?” asked Roy, sounding only barely affected by the movement of Ed's mouth across his skin. “I'll have to keep that in mind. The famous Mustang magnetism was hard enough to keep under control when I only had four stars on my lapel. Your title of 'Central's most eligible bachelor' may once again be under threat.”

Ed snorted, then bit down on the muscle of his lover's neck. Roy made a soft noise, and Ed began to feel a certain hardness pressing at his belly.

“Don't even think about it. You're fucking taken, _General_ Mustang, and don't you forget it.” Roy smiled, made a noise of agreement: he was taken. But, the way the general shifted his weight then to emphasize the difference in height between them, the way his fingers threaded through blonde hair to grasp and yank his head back, had Ed owned.

“I haven't forgotten,” said Roy, into Ed's ear. “And I haven't forgotten that you are _mine._ One more star doesn't change a thing.”

Then, he kissed Ed with all of the fiery passion that had defined his life, and Ed returned it, the golden star at rest between his fingers.

*

Truth had a way of coming out as rumor in Central Headquarters, without fail. There were always people there opening up their mouths just a bit too wide, being just a bit too indiscreet in their actions, leaving their words to hang in the air like smoke, for anyone to see. All of the interesting truths of the country gathered around that one complex of buildings like flies to a light, telling stories and baring secrets.

Truth was always available to anyone who would listen, and General Weimar was a consummate listener.

He loved listening to the chorus of it, of lies and desires, despair and treachery: power struggles played out quietly within that building, men living or dying by the strength of their bodies, their personalities, and their wits.

To ask the papers, the new-minted General Mustang had all three strengths in spades: they called him a new hope, a resplendent golden coin that somehow found its way to the top of the tarnished mass that was the rest of the military.

But Mikhael Weimar knew differently: he listened, he watched, and he saw the things that other men were blind to.

He had been aware of Mustang for years before their first official meeting: if you served in Ishbal, it was next to impossible to have not heard of the great Flame Alchemist. He had seen the man in the distance as he walked through one sandblasted camp or another, and thought that he looked rather shorter than his metaphorical stature would imply. Basque Gran had frankly towered over him, although Basque had towered over most men before that scarred desert dog had turned his head into a red rain on the pavement.

Mustang looked taller now that they were seeing each other up close, or perhaps he only seemed that way: Weimar was not as tall as he once had been, having served his country. The weight of the automail leg he had borne for the past thirteen years had charged its toll, and Weimar had paid.

Weimar watched Mustang, standing so tall with his chest puffed out, not a hair out of place. One would never know by looking at him that he fucked men, that he fucked men so much younger than him as to be obscene.

Mikhael Weimar had ears everywhere.

His mouth was moving, but Weimar heard nothing intelligent coming from between those pretty lips. Mustang turned back to the senior staff table, a fresh cup of tea in hand, his tone too nonchalant to host its traitorous content. He set the cup down on the table and sat down again, his eyes locking on those of each of the senior staff in turn, Weimar's included. Mustang's black eyes unsettled the older man.

“I simply think that our military resources could be put to better use than hunting down Ishballan refugees. That's all,” Mustang said, as if it were a reasonable declaration. “With Aerugo arming itself and Creta eying some of the iron mines in the western mountains, diplomatic relations those countries should take precedence in military strategy, closely followed by shoring up defenses to our eastern and southern borders. Should we really be spending valuable time and money taking out some disheveled group of refugees with no power structure and no resources?”

Of all the things General Weimar had been surprised to learn about the Flame Alchemist, one of the most off-putting had been that the man seemed to be an Ishballan sympathizer. He coated it in logic and patriotism, but you could see it, if you looked.

“But dealing with the criminal element within our own society takes precedence over dealing with foreign powers, wouldn't you say?” asked General Batir, raising a bushy white eyebrow at Mustang. “These remnants of Ishbal are dangerous, and are threats to the innocent civilians living within Central itself. Rumors suggest that they hide in the sewers, like vermin. If we had an infestation of rats, we would not hesitate to take them out. Is this not true?”

Fuhrer Hakuro sat with his chin resting on his folded hands, propped up on the table in front of him, listening to both sides. He may have been an ineffectual leader, but he was at least an excellent listener.

“Of course it is. But the Ishballan population in Amestris has not proven to be a criminal threat. Although by all accounts more are moving into the slums and sewers each day, crime reports in four out of our five largest cities have not increased at all, and two have in fact decreased over the course of the past six months,” said Mustang, his expression neutral but unyielding. There stood a man confident in his own abilities, in his own power.

“Because law-abiding citizens are taking extra precautions and not leaving their homes,” Weimar spat, voice booming through the room. “Because the police are raiding the Ishballan camps wherever they can find them. Because the military is on high alert.”

Mustang's reply was calm, unaffected.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the Ishballan refugees are any more given to violent crimes than the rest of the population, and they are significantly less well-armed than Aerugo, which has a structured and disciplined military.”

The cup of tea had grown cool in front of him, and Weimar's hand didn't shake at all as he brought it up to his mouth and drank. He hated the stuff. He wondered if Mustang liked it any better.

“For what it's worth,” piped in Grumman, from Weimar's left, “I think that General Mustang has a point. Targeted extermination isn't what the military is about. Neither is solving crimes. We defend the Amestrian people from armed rebellion and foreign threat. If the issue at hand is too many stolen cabbages: well, the police can deal with that sort of work. Don't you think, gentlemen? Or has the great Amestrian army been reduced to tracking lost vegetables, now?”

That earned a chuckle from a few of the men at the table, though the Fuhrer was mercifully unaffected.

“And besides,” Mustang slid in, before anyone else could get in a word, “to use the same metaphor as before, it is very difficult to rid oneself of rats. Often, the best you can do is to scare them off, to live another day in a different sewer. And if the military spends a significant amount of its resources on attempting to eliminate them fully, would it not be embarrassing for other countries to find out that we failed in such a simple task?”

There was a murmur of agreement from the men around him.

Weimar scowled. None of these other men had been maimed in Ishbal. If they had lost limbs in that desert hell, they wouldn't be so nonchalant about the fact that some of those people had survived, and were in fact crawling in a hive below them.

“General Mustang seems to have a point,” said Fuhrer Hakuro, sitting up straight in his chair, elbows relaxed on the armrests. “We'll leave the Ishballans for now. In the meantime, I fully expect some strategies as to how you plan to deal with Creta and Aerugo. General Mustang will provide me with political plans, and when the Cretan ambassador comes in a week to discuss national borders, you will be assigned to him for the duration of his stay. General Batir,” Hakuro continued, nodding to the thick-set man on the left of the table, with white powdering the roots of his dark hair and a snowy beard. “You will join the efforts that General Grumman has already begun in securing the southern border against a potential Aerugan invasion. General Weimar,” he said, eyes turning to focus on Weimar himself, “you will prepare a less... official response to the Aerugan threat. Whatever you do, I want no knowledge of it. Are we clear?”

When situations called for delicacy, the Fuhrer called on Weimar. He never went on missions himself, not anymore – but he was an excellent strategist, and he was proud to use the special operations teams to cut out undesirable elements with a minimum of fuss, in and out like a surgeon's knife.

If Roy Mustang felt anything with regard to these orders – and he did, Weimar was sure of it – his face betrayed none of it. The general nodded in acknowledgment.

“Yes, sir,” Mikhael said, repeated shortly by the rest of the sheep in the room.

“Dismissed. I intend to see detailed plans on my desk by tomorrow. Except for you, Weimar.”

The men stood, saluted their leader, and left. Mikhael Weimar left his teacup on the table: he didn't care for it and never had. He drank it, though, to be polite, and because the Fuhrer liked it, and because it was expected.

He passed into the hall, startled briefly by the suddenness of the warm air outside of the Fuhrer's conference room. His upper lip began to sweat, and he stared at the back of Mustang's self-righteous, prideful, traitorous head for a moment before he had to turn away, because that was all he could do for the moment.

 _Him with Fullmetal,_ he thought, and something hot flashed through him. _How could that have happened?_

He strode down the hallway in the opposite direction from the other generals, having no desire to spend any more time in their company that day than was absolutely necessary. It was late, anyway.

His skin crawled at the thought that an Ishballan could be running around in the sewers under his feet _right at that moment._ He had thought that the incidents with the Scarred Man all those years ago would have taught all of the military the dangers of leaving the Ishballan remnants unmolested, but apparently they had forgotten.

Weimar knew the kind of destruction the military had wreaked on that desert, and the Ishballans hated them for it. There were a thousand more like Scar, waiting to creep out of their dens to attack men like him.

The thought haunted his dreams at night: the thought of the scarred man's tattooed arm in front of him (he had been there when the man had burst Gran's head like a cherry), of Central laid to waste like Ishbal had been: a series of smoking craters, all semblance of order lost or abandoned, of children laid out in lines with their tiny heads crushed like Gran's had been, skulls no more than eggshells.

The ride home was filled with such images. On his orders, the driver let Weimar out a block before his house – because surely, no Ishballan would have the guts to get near his house, he would be safe for the moment – and went to the pay phone, closing the door and waiting for the military car to leave before beginning his business. He pulled a handful of change from his trouser pocket, then a small book from the one on his breast. He fed the machine, then flipped his book open to the right page – under the tab for _N,_ two entries back, though the name was fake – and spun the dial for the right number, and the name attached.

The phone rang, and again. Then, the unmistakable sound of the receiver being picked up on the other side.

“Hello, Guy Harriet speaking. What can I do for you?” The reporter's voice was a warm baritone, and energetic: familiar enough, over the past several years.

“Harriet, this is Mikhael Weimar. I need some very delicate work done, none of which, of course, can be proven to track back to me.”

“Yessir, boss. Who do you need me to take a stab at?”

Their conversation continued only for the next five minutes, but Weimar had told Harriet everything he needed to know.

Within two weeks, the reporter had promised. Weimar hoped that was true. He didn't know how much longer he could stand it.

He opened the front door to his house and walked through the entry, past the grand staircase, to find his wife sitting in the drawing room, her legs crossed at the ankles under her summer-yellow dress, polishing the silver that she had used at that dull but unfortunately necessary high tea they had hosted not two days prior.

“Hello, Meredith,” he said, and she smiled to see him, on her feet in a second. She crossed the room to him and threw her arms around him, and he hugged her back.

“Mikhael,” she said, drawing away. “How was your day?”

“Ah, same as ever,” he said, as she helped him to take off his jacket and put it on the hanging rack. “Politics and backstabbing and the like. Nothing that would be interesting to you, I'm sure,” he said, keeping his face in its practiced smile. She frowned at him.

“You know I'm always interested to hear about your political gambits. And besides, it doesn't really seem like a 'same as ever' day. You're tense,” she said, running a delicate hand across his shoulder, brow wrinkled in concern. “Not that you're ever not. But especially so today.”

He laughed. In some ways, she knew him too well.

She took his hand and led him to the couch, and he told her about his day, about the Ishballans and about Mustang and about the campaign he was about to start. She nodded in sympathy at all the right places.

At the end, she rested her head on his shoulder, and said:

“Are you too tired to try again tonight, then?” she asked, sweetly, not even looking at him as she put a hand to the emptiness in her belly – and even though he wanted to say that he was sorry, but he was far too tired, he owed her this much at least.

“No, not at all,” he said instead, and his wife led him by the hand up the sweeping staircase, past the guest bedrooms and the study, to their bedroom. He laid down on the bed, and Meredith beside him.

“Shh, close your eyes,” she said, and he did, tried to relax: he let her unbuckle his belt, felt her hand on him, stroking him – and he thought of other things, let her hand do its work, imagined it was rougher, heavier –

and tried not to think of Mustang and his haughty eyes – Fullmetal, all gold and silver – tried not to wonder about the two of them, how they felt as they sinned against nature.

She touched him, hands soft, and he did his duty by her.

*

“So how's life as a general?” Edward asked, one leg crossed over the other knee at the ankle as he sat on the back of Roy's couch, watching his lover at the kitchen table, scribbling furiously on white paper. He had been doing more or less the same thing for the half hour that Ed had been there, and Ed was beginning to get impatient. “Seems exciting,” he said, dryly.

“It's not necessarily riveting, but it is important,” Roy said, looking up from his work and over at Ed with a wan smile. “I'm actually writing up a plan for our political response to the overtures from Aerugo and Creta. I'm to be the escort for the Cretan ambassador next week.” This time, he smirked. “And I actually hear that she's quite a lovely lady. I'm looking forward to it.”

Ed snorted and rolled his eyes both at once, a feat of multitasking he hoped his lover appreciated. 

“I think they call that 'taking advantage of your position.' Maybe even sexual harassment.” Some things never changed, and Roy Mustang was one of them.

“You wound me, Edward. I would never touch a lady without her explicit consent.”

This time, a snort of laughter.

“I'm sure. Good to know your new post is agreeing with you.”

“Did you expect anything different?” Roy asked, amused: then, he paused, and the focus of his eyes went distant. “Actually, there was something today that really unsettled me. I can't really put my finger on it. I went to my first senior staff meeting, and there was this air of – I don't know. Tension? We were talking about the Ishballan refugees, and the room went really cold.” He paused, thinking. “It was like somebody in there really hated me.”

Ed frowned.

“Hated you? But what reason would they have to hate you?”

Roy's smile didn't drop, but wore down at the edges.

“What reason would the old guard have to hate an up-and-coming political reformer, Ed? Oh, I don't know. Use your imagination.”

Edward could imagine a great many things.

“Well,” he began, hopping down off of the back of the couch and covering the distance between the two of them, smoothly. “I guess you're just gonna have to change their minds, huh? Isn't that what you do best?”

Roy laughed, and put a few more strokes to paper.

“Your faith in me is inspiring, but I'm not sure if it is entirely justified in this case. Changing the hearts and minds of the Amestrian people is one thing, but changing the minds of my political opponents is quite another.”

“Eh, it'll be good practice for ya,” Edward said. “But in any case, I'm pretty sure I know how to make you feel better.”

Roy's eyebrow arched, and his gaze flickered to the report in front of him, then back to Ed.

“Do you?” he asked, innocently. “And how might that be?”

Ed savored the look of surprise on Roy's face as he got to his knees and slid under the table, hands moving to the crotch of the older man's pants.

“Edward,” he said, sounding just a bit breathless, “I really have to finish this report. As appealing as your mouth on my cock sounds, I think it will be entirely too distracting.”

“Will it? Well, I'm sure you'll manage somehow, General,” said Edward, and pushed the man's legs apart.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After having written probably 120,000 words for this so far and having thrown away at least 30,000 of it entirely, I'm feeling a bit discouraged. Your comments encourage me, and will help me run the rest of this marathon.
> 
> So please, if you liked it, tell me!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As scheduled, back exactly two weeks from my last post! I really appreciate the love you guys have been giving me, it's really helped me get my steam back on this monster. 
> 
> Also, uh, sorry for the length of the chapter. It's pretty intense.
> 
> Also, just for the record, this fic takes place in a magical porn world where STDs aren't a thing and therefore condoms are unnecessary, because this is my porn and I wanted it that way.

*

The day had been a lazy one, for the most part: Roy had been allowed that Saturday off, for the first time in several weeks. Edward, ever dedicated to his work, had stomped off to the lab with a croissant stuffed in his mouth at about nine thirty, and returned to the man's house at around two in the afternoon to find the general absently watering all of his plants from a ridiculously quaint metal can, a smile on his face.  Ed arched an eyebrow: if he wasn't entirely mistaken, Roy was -- humming.

“What's got you so cheery today?” Ed asked, kicking his boots under the wooden bench by the entryway. He sat down and and yanked the socks off of his feet, one at a time, leaving them on top of his boots so he could pad barefoot over the wooden floor, then the carpet, to flop down on the couch. He slung his arm over the back and turned so he could watch his lover behind it.

Roy twisted to look at him, the position of his eyebrows matching Ed's own, and turned the corners of his mouth up.

“Do I need a reason to be happy? It's been a beautiful day.”

A mostly unwarranted suspicion crept up on Edward.  Of all the people he knew, only Al was prone to humming and smiling and shit for no reason at all. Long experience told him that the distant look in Roy's eye probably meant he was daydreaming about something, and for Roy, “daydreaming” and “plotting” were pretty much synonymous.. Any plan that Roy was making that he didn't want to tell Ed about made him nervous.

“You don't need a reason to be happy, but you were _humming,_ ” Edward said, wiggling his toes just to stretch them. “That's not normal. I get nervous when I don't know why you're happy,” he said, words half accusatory.  "Knowing you, I feel like you're probably _plotting_  something."

Leaving the watering can on the small, high table beneath the painting of Lake Ayre in the winter, Roy rounded the couch to stand in front of Ed.

“And you would be quite right,” said Roy, the curve of his mouth suddenly sliding into predatory. “I have been,” he said, his voice low and promising. “Planning something, even.”

Edward shuddered as a heated anticipation rushed through his blood. Somehow, the effect Roy had on him always caught him off guard.  every time he felt it was like the first time, a surprise and a thrill, his body frozen as much by that voice now as it had been in the beginning.

“That sounds ominous,” Edward said, cinching his brows together.

“Have I ever led you astray before?”

Well, no: but that knowledge didn't really make him feel any better.  It wasn't that he thought Roy was going to hurt him or anything: he just didn't like not knowing what was going on in the man's head.

“Depends on what you mean by 'astray,'" Edward replied, spreading his knees more widely, to get comfortable. Roy took advantage of the movement, eyes wandering up and down the younger man's body, unhurriedly. Edward's lips were dry; he licked them, and found that all moisture had left his mouth as well.

“No, I have not,” said Roy, serenely.  He rounded the couch and took a seat on it.  Ed could feel his body heat radiating into the space between them. “And with that in mind, I now have a proposition for you.”

Ed waited, hands pulsing with the sheer force of his heartbeat. He wanted Roy to kiss him, wanted the man to tie him up and hurt him, wanted to be punished and rewarded –

“I want to engage more people in our play. Say, maybe, five or six men, in a semi-public venue. What do you think about that?”

The still-conscious part of Ed's mind reared at that, startling Ed into an anger born of confusion.

“ _What?_ ” he asked, head suddenly straighter, shoulders tight. “Why?”

“Because I think it would be enjoyable for all of us. Because the idea of showing you off to a crowd is incredibly arousing.”

Edward barely even heard the man before responding:

“Am I not enough for you anymore, is that it? You need to have sex with a bunch of people now to be satisfied?” he asked, sharply.

Surprise flashed across Roy's face for a moment, before his brow wrinkled and he replied:

“Oh, no, Edward.” That look of consternation smoothed out into a long smirk. “You misunderstand me. It wouldn't be _me_ having sex with other people. It would be _you._ ”

Those words dragged into a long silence as Ed tried to take in what he had just heard.

What, did that mean that Mustang wanted to give him up? He had thought that the man gained some sort of pride from being the only person in the world who could make the Fullmetal Alchemist get on his knees.

“But... why?” he asked, trying to rein in his fury. He had promised Roy he would be reasonable, that he would listen to the man's requests, that he would consider them rationally instead of letting his own insecurities get in the way of their relationship. He had promised to try not to fuck this up. “I don't understand why you'd want to.”

And then Roy was on the couch beside him, hands stroking hot skin: one, tracing his neck, the other drawing circles on the bare strip of stomach revealed as his tight tank top rode up his waist.

“Do you really not?” he asked, his voice a purr. “You don't find it arousing, thinking of a group of strangers touching you all at once? Wanting you?”

When he put it that way...

“Um, I dunno,” Ed managed, with some difficulty. Roy's hands on him alone made it very hard to think. “But why would you want something like that? What would you get out of it?” Weren't you supposed to get jealous when the person you were with got touched by somebody else? Ed sure as hell would be, he thought.

“Can't you imagine it?” Roy asked, every syllable defined and lustful. “Watching them want you, watching them need you and touch you but only at my command, knowing that you're mine and that you'll do whatever I order you to, even if it's to let other men fuck you...”

Roy's voice had turned low, rumbling, and the crotch of Ed's pants became suddenly much too tight, and his face felt very hot. His knees became the immediate point of interest.

“You want to watch me get fucked by strangers?”

“Yes, very much,” he said, in that voice that could make Edward come undone. “So much that it has been a constant distraction for several days, now. The thought has followed me through work, haunted my imagination even at the most inappropriate times.” He paused, face smooth, but Edward knew by now what Roy looked like when he was losing control, and he saw it in the general's face then.

Was this the impact he had on Roy Mustang? Could just an image of Ed, a daydream, break down the walls of his impeccable restraint?

Tied up, touched by strangers, fucked by them, a whore for their use and pleasure: he didn't want to be rock hard at the thought, but he undeniably was. Even in comparison to the things he and Roy had been doing for the past several months, it seemed weird; a large part of him revolted at the thought of anyone ever being able to see how he let Roy treat him, how he wanted Roy to treat him. Would anybody ever respect him again if this got out? Edward Elric defended himself when necessary. Edward Elric was a force to be reckoned with. Nobody could make him do anything he didn't damn well feel like doing.

And still, his cock throbbed at the thought. He didn't know which part made him harder: the image of getting tied up, beaten, and fucked by strangers, or the knowledge that he could affect Roy so powerfully.

The faint gloss of Edward's leather pants only accentuated the swell of his crotch, and the general looked at it, pointedly, his right hand slipping down from Ed's navel to the waistline. He traced a thumb back and forth there, right above the button, teasing.

“Can I take it from your reaction” – at this, Roy's hand moved down to brush against said reaction – “that, despite all your conscious reservations, you're interested?”

Ed took a deep breath, felt his cheeks begin to heat.

“Kinky bastard,” he said, then slid over to straddle Roy's lap, his lips hovering less than an inch away from his lover's as his erection throbbed, trapped between their bodies, the older man's length pressing up between his cheeks to tease at his entrance. “I'm a little freaked out by the whole thing – and I should be, 'cause it's _weird_ – but I'll do just about anything if it's gonna get you so hot and bothered.”

“I thought you might,” Roy growled, then caught Ed's mouth in a violent kiss, frantic with need, with lust: their bodies were hot on each other, and they couldn't have pulled apart for anything in the world.

*

Roy's penchant for planning was the only thing that saved him, some days. After a challenging conversation, a political gamble, he could retreat into his own fantasies, his own ideas, his plans: as much as being a general was what he wanted to do, what he needed to do, he was beginning to learn just what it meant to be at the top of this card house. Every day, at all hours, he had to be in perfect form, absolutely focused and razor-sharp: the minute he relaxed would be the minute someone was there to knock him over.

So, in between meetings or at meals or on the drive home, he escaped into the world he created in his mind: one where he had all the power, where no-one could challenge him, where he could order one of the strongest, most brilliant men in the world to get on his knees for strangers and he would obey. Planning their encounter was almost like a meditation: he choreographed their movements mentally, decided what he would do, rehearsed his lines. He knew what turned his young lover on by then, which words, when whispered in his ear, would make him react. The perfect combination of it all was like poetry – deceptively simple, incredibly impactful.

This planning saved him, some days. He knew from the moment that he saw Mikhael Weimar approaching him in the Generals' dining room that today was going to be one of those days where he would need such saving.

“Hello, Mustang,” said General Weimar, sliding the chair out across the table from him and taking it without ceremony. One of the things that Mustang liked best and worst about his new position was that he no longer ever had to go to the mess hall: instead he got a proper dining room, with tablecloths on the tables and a waiter who brought you whatever it was you felt like having. Not only did this mean that he was supposed to eat better than his men – significantly better – but also that he had to suffer the company of the other generals regularly, and do so pleasantly.

He had begun to skip a lot of meals, since he had become a General.

Roy folded his hands on the table. He could see Weimar look down at them nervously, making sure they were bare – they were: why would Roy wear his gloves in the dining room? – before continuing on. Mustang smirked. With that one, tiny glance downward, the man had made his fear of Roy clear as a trumpet, putting Roy in control of this conversation.

He was glad for any advantage he had on this field, because something about Weimar made him uncomfortable. It wasn't his appearance: he was trim, about Roy's height, with a well-groomed beard that only hinted at growing grey, and he smiled easily. It wasn't even about their disagreements when in council together, as political differences did not always lead to personal animosity. He did get the sense that Weimar genuinely loved the fatherland, and would do anything to protect it. It wasn't even anything that the man had done that had made Roy uncomfortable. They had never interacted significantly outside of the council chambers, though Roy knew that he really should, and so he had little upon which to base such a judgment.

No, it wasn't any of those things: it was a strange sense he got when Weimar smiled at him. If he was honest with himself, it felt like he was being sized up and found wanting.

“Hello, General Weimar,” Roy replied, pleasantly. “What a rare treat for you to join me at lunch. I was just about to have a salmon filet.” His discomfort with eating so much better than his men was not always enough to quell his desire to avail himself of this new amenity.

“I'm not much of a man for fish, myself,” replied Weimar, unfolding his napkin carefully and placing it on his lap. So he intended to stay, for a while. “I think that steak is far superior. The chef here makes an excellent filet mignon.”

Roy nodded, doing the same with his own napkin, then taking a sip of the water in his wineglass. He didn't drink during work hours: plenty of time for that at home.

“I see no issue with enjoying them both. If folk wisdom is correct, then variety is the spice of life,” he said, with a polite but cutting smile.

“Perhaps, but constancy is her bedrock,” Weimar countered, signaling the waiter with a raised hand. The man started across the room towards them.

The man spoke in evasion and metaphor. Mustang's smile grew. This was a game he could play.

“Still, I prefer my variety,” said Roy lightly, crossing his legs underneath the table. “What brings you here to join my humble lunch today, General?”

“It occurs to me that we have never had the opportunity to get to know one another, though I certainly have known of you for years. I saw you fight in Ishbal. Most impressive.”

Roy had heard this a million times if he had heard it once. It might have annoyed him to hear the same tired, insincere compliments over again, except that by now it was a script that he knew how to follow, and he had to press every advantage he had.

“Thank you very much. Really, I was no more impressive than the ordinary soldier, though. Just flashier,” he said, with a wan smile. “Just the same, thank you for your praise. I'm just pleased to have done my duty.”

“You're too modest,” replied the other, with a flash of teeth disguised as a smile that implied he thought the opposite. “You were a human weapon, Mustang, and your spotless battle record speaks to your prowess. The conquest of Tabash and Kobal, the battle of Andor: all might have been lost, if you hadn't pulled us through, or if we had one, then thousand more good men would have died. If I'm not mistaken, you received four medals, for courage under fire and continuing to fight even while wounded,” he said, and he would have continued if the waiter hadn't arrived at just that moment. Weimar ordered his filet mignon and a glass of red wine. The gloves, though absent, weighed on the space between them.

The moment of reprieve did Roy good, allowing him to arrange his thoughts and words in the proper order. After all these years, one would think that he was used to having his battle record thrown in his face, but usually his opponent didn't provide such detail.

Each word was a memory, unbidden and unwelcome, but familiar: the battle of Tabash, and a young boy armed with innocent eyes, a gun, and fervent conviction, now just a shadow on the wall; Kobal, and two blonde doctors whose faces Mustang could never escape; the city of Andor, now little more than a smoking crater. He remembered very well indeed.

“There are a few other medals in your cabinet as well, if I'm not mistaken,” the man said, turning his eyes back to Roy. He smiled. “You're quite the impressive man.”

“I'm flattered that you know my battle record so well,” the Flame Alchemist replied, trying to sound that way, though “disturbed” may have run closer to the truth of it. Clearly, either the man had been doing some serious research, or he had been watching Roy compulsively for years, neither of which boded well. “I seem to recall that the Fuhrer honored you with a number of medals for your outstanding service there, as well, although I admit that I'm not as familiar with your battle records as you are with mine.”

“Oh, I read your file multiple times, when we were choosing the man to fill the late General Martin's place,” he replied, casually. “After a while, one begins to remember these things.”

Roy's salmon arrived then, dressed in a cream sauce and laid atop a bed of wild rice and dried cranberries, with a sprig of parsley for decoration. The staff here certainly never disappointed.

The waiter poured Weimar his glass of wine, and retired to the other corner, where he could stand with his hands behind his back and wait until he was called, a discreet distance from the electric conversation.

“Regardless, I'm honored that you would have spent the effort of remembering.” One careful bite, tines of his fork pointed down: the salmon tasted as delicious as it looked.

Weimar made a noise of acknowledgment, and took a sip of his wine.

“In any case, in addition to getting to know you, I wanted to extend an offer,” the general said, expertly avoiding a clink as he set his glass down on the table. “My lady wife is hosting a coffee for the officers' wives this coming Sunday morning. Mrs. Hakuro will also be in attendance. Would your own wife like to attend? I'm sure Meredith would be happy to meet her.” His eyes were sharp, calculating.

Mustang kept his smile on. If Weimar had read his file multiple times, then he would know that Roy had no wife.

He had Edward Elric, tied to his ceiling or to his bed, moaning and calling him _master._ He had a blonde-haired demigod writhing under his hand, and hard cries in his ear.

Once again, part of his mind found comfort and refuge in his fantasy. He would whip his younger lover while the other men watched – no, he would watch as one of the others whipped him at Roy's command. He took a deep breath, calming. He could do this. Compared to taming that wild thing in his bed, this game was easy.

The only possible point of Weimar saying such a thing would be to remind Roy that he _didn't_ have a wife. He couldn't tell if the barb was intended to see if Roy's lack of a wife was a personal sore point that could be exploited, or to berate the younger general for not having the two-and-a-half-kids, white-picket-fence life that the public tended to expect of its politicians. Military or no, Roy was a politician, and so was Mikhael Weimar, and this was their battleground.

“I'm afraid that I actually have no wife at the moment,” he said, with a laugh intended to sound a bit embarrassed.

“Oh, that's right. I recall that your file did say something about you being quite the ladies' man. But, you know, settling down with one woman does a man good,” he said, and once again, though Roy could sense intentions beyond the veil, he couldn't tell exactly where the man was going.

“I'm sure it does,” Roy replied, politely. “But until that happy day arrives, I must be forced to make do with what I have. On that topic, I have yet to make the acquaintance of your wife. Meredith, did you say? Perhaps she could be convinced to allow me to attend her coffee myself instead?”

Weimar arched both of his eyebrows into the air. The waiter arrived and set his steak down in front of him. When he cut into it, the center was a bloody red.

“What, would you relegate yourself to the company and conversation of women for a full afternoon? Doesn't their gossip bore you?”

“I have found,” said Roy, his smile perhaps sharper than he had intended, “that there is little in life more pleasant than the company of an intelligent woman, and the company of half a dozen of them is even more stimulating. And if you chose her out of all the women in Amestris to marry, I'm sure that your wife is both intelligent and beautiful.”

Weimar laughed at that, and nodded, and Roy got the sense that he had given the right answer to that question.

“She is, at that,” the other general replied. “She is indeed. My other half. My better half, some might say.”

Roy had a woman for his better half as well, both intelligent and beautiful: but she wore a military uniform and a gun, and would never be caught dead hosting a coffee for officers' wives.

Not for the first time, he wondered if his life would have been easier if he had just taken Hughes's advice and found himself a wife years ago.

He smiled, mind suddenly very much focused elsewhere. His life might have been easier, perhaps, but not better. By no means better.

“I really must meet her, then. When would be appropriate for me to arrive?”

“Oh, I believe she is planning for about ten o'clock in the morning. Can I tell her you plan to call on us?”

“I would be honored,” Roy replied. “You can tell her I'm looking forward to it.”

*

“So how's the whole... thing, going?” asked Edward that evening, watching Roy leaf through books on Cretan political systems and customs, though he probably knew them all by heart: he was that sort of a man.

Roy looked up at him from his position on the couch and cocked an eyebrow.

“I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific than that. I'm leaping to all kinds of conclusions.”

Edward, lying on the floor, put his hands behind his head and kicked his feet up to rest on the seat of the armchair. He sort of wished there was a fire, but the weather wasn't nearly cold enough yet. He turned his head to look at his lover, sideways.

“I mean that thing you were talking about the other day. The one... uh... in public.”

The eyebrow raised even higher, accompanied this time by a little smirk.

“Well, that narrows the field down, doesn't it.”

“Asshole,” said Edward, without force. “I meant that sex thing you were talking about.” He didn't blush or look away as he said it, which was quite the improvement.

“Ah, that one,” said Roy, his smirk lengthening and quirking further upwards. “It's going quite well, really. I have found five men to join us, and a semi-public space. There is a large room at the back of one of the bars on Duncan street that is regularly used for these kinds of things, and we have all agreed to meet there, though we have yet to set a date. Do you have an opinion on that matter?”

“Uh,” said Edward, wondering who these men were and what they would be like, “Whenever, I guess.” A pause. “Where the hell do you find these people, anyway? And how do you find those places? I don't even know how I'd do it if I wanted to.”

“Well, having a brothel madam for a foster mother has its advantages. I always know where to find these sorts of things, if I want them.”

If Edward had been drinking something, he would have choked on it. He jerked his feet off the armchair and stared at Roy, wide-eyed.

“You have a _what?_ ” he asked, wide-eyed, probably louder than he had intended.

“A brothel madam for a foster mother,” said Roy with a laugh. “She's quite the lady. You might even get to meet her sometime.”

His first thought was that he hadn't even known Roy had had a foster mother. In fact, it occurred to him that Roy's whole past was more or less a mystery to him, and what little he knew he hadn't learned from Roy, but from Dr. Marcoh.

His second thought, which he said aloud immediately, was:

“Oh my god, that explains _so many things._ ”

Roy looked like he couldn't decide whether to be amused or affronted.

“Are you calling me a whore?”

Ed grinned and flipped over to his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Maybe. You've slept with half the women in Central, after all. Remember, I know your alchemical code. By my count, there are two hundred and eighty one women in that book, and sixty-five men.” Eventually, Ed had gotten over his jealousy of all of Roy's former lovers – mostly, in any case. It had been pretty easy once he realized that Roy had only rarely slept with someone more than a few times, and that he had only ever had one relationship with a person other than Edward that had lasted more than about a month. Mostly, Roy's past was littered not with former loves, but with one night stands, and they posed him no threat. “That's about a whore's numbers, yeah.”

This time, it was actually Roy's turn to blush. Ed thrilled inside: he wasn't sure he'd ever seen that expression on his lover's face before.

“Well, imagine what it was like to be living in a room above a house full of sexually talented and very attractive women as a teenager. They were my friends, and they taught me – well, they taught me a lot of things. You should be grateful for a number of those things.”

“Oh, I am,” Ed replied, then paused for just a second, frowning. “Wait, you never actually – you never got paid for – did you?”

A bright flash of teeth cut away the look of embarrassment, leaving a grin behind on Mustang's face.

“I'm a generous man. I have never charged for access. For my whole life, no matter the situation, I've been giving all this –” he sat up straight and gestured to himself, from top to bottom “–for free. In fact, you might even think of it as an act of charity.”

Ed couldn't help but laugh at that.

“Smug bastard,” said Edward, and threw a pillow at the other man.

*

The air outside had cooled some since the boiling heat of summer, but even the chill of the evening breeze that hit Ed as he stepped out of the car wasn't enough to stop the bead of sweat across the back of his neck. The bar that they had decided to use was a fair distance away, too far to comfortably walk – and besides, Ed remembered the lassitude that overtook him most nights when Roy was done with him. He really didn't want to have to walk back afterward.

Ed took in a deep, steady breath. He remembered this panicky sort of feeling, mixed with desire an anticipation in a way that was heady but thoroughly confusing. He looked over at Roy, always so calm and unflappable, and circled around the car to walk by his side.

“You look nervous,” said Roy, his expression perfectly fond. “You going to be okay?”

“I'm fine,” said Edward, eyes to the ground. “Or anyway, I'll be fine once we actually get started.”

“I hope it will help to hear how much I am looking forward to this,” said Roy. Ed shivered – first cold, then hot. The heat stayed pooled in his loins. He risked a look up at his lover. “Even your nervousness is only making this more exciting for me. I want to overcome all of your reservations, to make you forget logic and good sense, to make you want to give in to me.”

It was obvious enough what Roy was trying to do: he wanted to start getting Ed aroused, and into that blissfully submissive state of mind he entered during play, before they even got into the building. Just because he knew what the man was doing didn't mean that it wasn't working.

“Asshole,” said Ed, without venom, “You're not supposed to like it when I get nervous.”

“Oh, but I love to see you squirm,” Mustang said, smiling with a predator's bared teeth. “It gets me more excited than words could tell you.”

“What, you up already?” said Ed, his body beginning to react with a rush of warmth low in his gut. “Jumpin the gun a bit, aren't ya?”

“No, not there yet,” Roy replied, the emphasis on the last word deep and promising. “But I haven't seen you squirm yet, either.”

Ed shivered again, his arousal warring with his anxiety: finally, just barely, the former began to come out on top. A smirk made its way across Mustang's face as a blush did the same across Edward's.

“Asshole,” said Ed, faintly, hunching over and putting his hands in his pockets. Roy's hand came up to rub the small of the younger man's back.

“You wound me, Fullmetal,” he purred, and the hand on Ed's back was suddenly a thousand times more important than whatever lay beyond the swiftly approaching wooden doors.

“You remember the safe words, right?” Roy said, quiet, suddenly the picture of concern as he pulled the front door open and ushered Edward inside.

“Yeah,” said Edward, giving his lover as reassuring of a smile as he could manage. “I say 'yellow' if I want less of whatever it is you're doing.” Fat chance of that ever happening: he couldn't imagine any of the people who were going to be in that room being able to give him so much of anything that the Fullmetal Alchemist would have to ask them to slow down. “'Orange' if I wanna kick a specific guy out.”

“If you feel like anyone's being disrespectful of you or your boundaries, or in some other way making you uncomfortable, you _can_ do that. Can I trust you to do that?” asked Roy, his eyes crinkling in concern.

“'Course,” Ed replied, trying for nonchalance, not sure if he was telling the truth or not. “Don't worry about it. And before you ask, 'red' is the third word, and it means a full stop. It's like going for the chalk is usually, for us.”

Previously, in their play, Roy had provided a piece of chalk at a just-slightly-inconvenient distance from wherever Edward was tied up: if Ed wanted whatever they were doing to stop, he could go for it, then use it to draw a transmutation circle and free himself. At first, Edward had thought it was a pretty weird way to give him an escape route, but after thinking about it, he had realized that it had a few very important advantages over just asking Roy to stop. Most importantly, getting the chalk was something of a challenge, which meant that Edward could fight for his escape rather than just ask to leave. Ed hated giving up, and using the chalk instead of asking would allow him to feel like his escape was a victory rather than a defeat: so, he was more likely to use his out if things ever did get to be too much for him.

Roy always wanted to know that whatever position he had the blonde in, Edward was there because he wanted to be, and not just because he was too proud to ask the man to stop. The chalk had honestly been a brilliant idea on Roy's part.

“Right,” said the older man, smiling in return. “If you did get uncomfortable and decided that you wanted to stop, then transmuting yourself free would probably draw more attention than we're looking for. Or the wrong kind of attention, anyway,” he said, the look in his eyes intensifying again, hardening his smile to a knife. “You are going to be the focus of every person's attention in that room, tonight. Everyone is going to be staring at you, watching you, because they will _want_ you.” He leaned in closer, so that even despite the insistent volume of the music through the room, Roy was the only thing Ed could hear. “And some of them will even get to have you.” Lips brushed across the shell of his ear, and he shivered. Then, after a moment:

“Fuck, you sure do have a way with words, don't you, you bastard,” groused Edward, sounding maybe a little bit more breathless than he had intended.

“It's one of my many talents,” Mustang said, sweeping them both through the sparsely populated bar towards a door at the back of the room. A thick-chested bouncer guarded it, watching their approach like he was displeased by their presence – at least, until Roy took a wad of cash out of his pocket and extended it in front of him, at which point the man nodded and reached out to take it. Ed didn't know how much money was in that wad, and decided that he wasn't going to care.

Edward watched Mustang's hands as the other man took the money from them, and realized that he wished there was a familiar transmutation circle on the back of them. For most of the time they had been fucking, when Roy wore those gloves, it meant that he was asking to do dirty, dirty things to Edward: by this point, the sight of them alone was enough to get the younger man hot and bothered, or sometimes even to get him hard. But although they couldn't go fully incognito – Edward's appearance was also quite distinctive, for a number of reasons – they at least could try not to advertise their identities, and Roy's transmutation circle might as well have been a personal brand.

But Roy, being Mister Always-Prepared, had thought to order himself a set of plain, unmarked white gloves made of the same spark-cloth, because the texture itself – somewhere in between burlap and sandpaper, rough but not enough so that it could actually scratch him when scraping across the delicate skin of his neck, of his cock – aroused Edward unbelievably.

Seeming satisfied with the amount Mustang had handed him, the bouncer motioned them through the door with a wave of his hand and not a single word. Ed shivered as they passed through and pressed his hands deeper into his coat pockets: his anxiety, which had briefly lost out to his arousal, was rising again. Thumbs rubbed circles into the nape of Ed's neck, but Roy wouldn't insult him by asking again if he was alright.

At the end of the hallway they had entered, they came to another door, which Ed opened for his lover, because he was perfectly capable of opening his own doors, dammit. Roy gave him a wry look, but passed through first, without a word of complaint. Ed followed.

What he saw was somehow not at all what he had been expecting, although he wasn't sure exactly what he had been expecting, either: maybe he had thought there would be medieval torture devices everywhere or something, with the room cast only in flickering torchlight, but the reality of it was quite different. Lit to a permanent dusk, the room was bright enough to see what one was doing but dim enough to enhance the fantasy, and lined not with torture devices but with couches, many of them filled with people in varying amounts. Pieces of metal furniture of odd design, with padded-leather seats or saddles or something, filled the floor of the room at fairly even intervals from each other. Most of it looked so odd that he couldn't even figure out how one was supposed to use it, though a few were occupied by people – naked strangers, oh god – who were tied up in various positions, assisted by the armature of the objects in question, which gave him a good hint.

Even a few of the unoccupied ones weren't hard to figure out, though. Chains hung from the ceiling every few feet, many with manacles attached, and one ten foot square metal frame stood upright near the back of the room, with chains and cuffs at all four corners. One didn't have to be a genius to figure out that that it was intended to hold someone in a spread-eagle position while allowing another person access to both the tied-up person's back and front.

Somehow, that one image turned the whole surreal landscape solid and definite, inerasable: he felt his throat clench, and turned his eyes back to the floor. Roy's hand continued its soothing motion on his neck, and he focused on that.

“Welcome to the Forbidden Fruit, Ed,” the man said. “I know the name's a bit cheesy, but don't give up on me yet.” Roy laughed, and somehow the silliness of the name helped Ed feel a bit better.

“Haven't so far,” said Edward, smile shaky. “Okay. So. Are we gonna do this thing or not?” A quick glance around the room told him who his partners were likely to be – they were the only ones focused on him as if he were target practice. Three of them shared a couch, their limbs spreading across the seats at odd angles; one was standing, leaning against a wall, another sitting in a large armchair perpendicular to the couch with his ankle crossed over his knee.

They were still far enough away that Ed wouldn't have to talk to them yet, which was nice. He wanted Roy to take the lead in that.

“Itching to get started, are we?” asked Roy, one perfect eyebrow arching.

“Better'n waiting around like an idiot and expectin' shit to get done anyway,” Ed said, which was of course true. He wasn't gonna get any less nervous by putting it off.

“Fair enough,” said Roy, and used the slight pressure on his neck to guide him over to the appropriate corner. Five pairs of eyes tracked Ed, unrelenting, as he moved closer. As they did, one of the men got to his feet. He was certainly attractive in his way, with brown hair that fell to his shoulders and soft lips.

“Hello, Roy,” the man said, eyes focused on Edward, despite the fact that he was ostensibly addressing Mustang. “Good to see you again.” With that, he finally let his eyes meet Roy's and smiled. “Very good.”

“And you as well,” the general said, taking his hand down from the back of Ed's neck. “Everyone, this is Edward,” he said, as many eyes slipped up and down Ed's body. His leather pants seemed to be a favorite point of examination. “Edward, this is Conrad,” he continued, with a gesture to the man in front of him. Then, waving to each of the rest in turn, he said: “Jan, Anton, Marcos, Erik.”

Ed doubted that he would be able to put names to the faces later, but it didn't really matter. He wasn't there to talk to them.

“Hey,” said Edward, hunching his shoulders. If he had been socially competent, that would have been the part where he said something else, but his brain and mouth froze up in tandem, like they did so often. Thankfully, Roy was good at shit like this, so he stepped in.

“Thank you all for being here tonight. We really do appreciate it, even if Edward is too shy to tell you so himself.”

“Hey! I am _not_ fuckin _shy,_ ” Edward snapped, turning a glare up at his lover. “I'm just not as used to this kind of shit as you are, I don't know what the hell to say. Give me a fuckin break.” Roy smiled, but didn't reply, keeping his face turned to their audience.

“See? Gentlemen, not only does he have a voice, but he can actually in fact speak in groups of syllables at once, not just one. Although,” he continued, his voice growing low and suggestive, “I think you will find that this capacity deserts him entirely once you have his pants down.”

“Bastard,” Edward said, turning scarlet. If he hadn't felt like he was the only actor on stage in front of a tough audience, he might have hit the man. “Fuck you.”

The man standing in front of them – Conrad – laughed.

“Well, aren't you a feisty little guy?” he said, and Edward saw red.

“Who the fuck are you calling –”

But the beginning of his tirade was interrupted when Roy's hand came up to jerk his ponytail down and his neck back at a painful angle.

“I think that perhaps we should leave his height out of it,” said Roy, pleasantly, even as Edward steamed at the ears. “He's rather sensitive about the topic.”

“So I see,” said the man, looking entirely too amused. Then, his tone turned pointed, predatory. “Mm. He's everything you promised he'd be, isn't he?” Slowly, the grip released on Ed's hair, and he straightened, beginning to breathe normally again.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to know what Mustang had promised he would be or if he really, really didn't. Roy wasn't volunteering the information.

“Did you think I was lying?” the general asked, lightly.

“No, no,” said Conrad, “It just seemed improbable, is all.”

“It is improbable,” said Roy. “But not impossible, as you can see. In any case, are you all ready?” he asked, turning to the group. There was a chorus of agreement. Edward took a long, deep breath. He wasn't sure if he was.

Some of the men moved to stand, but Roy put out a hand to stop them.

“Please, don't stand up yet. Edward and I need a moment to prepare, by ourselves, if that's alright by you,” he said, more to be polite than because he was actually asking permission. “Though you are, of course, free to watch.”

“That's fine,” said Conrad, who was apparently the only one interested in talking at that precise moment. “Take your time, though I eagerly await my own turn.”

Edward's breath began to come fast and shallow. He swallowed, and licked his lips.

“It will come soon enough,” Roy said. Then, to Edward, his tone changing utterly: “Follow me.” These words struck Ed, deep and commanding: he couldn't help his shiver or urge to follow. That tone – the Voice of the commander, the drill sergeant, the ruler, utterly confident in his own divine right to rule, meting out reward and punishment as he saw fit – made Edward forget himself, lose himself, until he couldn't have controlled himself anymore even if he had wanted to.

When Mustang stopped in the far corner of the room, Edward did as well, without having to be asked. Then, the general turned to him, focused eyes on him, and he remembered again why he allowed this, despite all of the anxiety and embarrassment: in that moment, as the people around them melted into a distant haze, he felt like the only thing in his lover's world.

“On your knees,” Mustang growled, gaze rife with powerful intention. “Now.”

And with that first order, Edward felt his length begin to stiffen: the general's eyes tracked down to the evidence of his arousal – these pants hid nothing, only accentuated the issue – and smiled. He did as commanded, and the way the general ran fingers through his hair then, pulling it out of its ponytail and fisting his hand in it at the top of his head, sent a hot shiver down Ed's spine. His mouth fell open; his lungs were struggling under the tightness in his body, in his loins.

“Good,” said Roy, eyes dark and focused right on Edward's. “Now, I have something for you.” A hand dipped into Roy's jacket pocket, and drew out a thin band of leather, not more than an inch wide, with a metal buckle and a large ring on the front.

On instinct, Ed flinched back: a collar, a _collar,_ today of all days, when he was meant to give himself up to all of these strangers?

“What the fuck?! A _collar?_ ” he snapped, the response automatic and unexamined. Though he couldn't see the men anymore, he was once again aware of their presence: the stares burned his back, as if they were physical.“The first time you pull this shit, and it's in front of all of these people? You trying to fuckin humiliate me?” Ed didn't know if the sight aroused or infuriated him more. Wearing a collar was one thing, something had considered – _fantasized about_ – more than once. But doing it in front of all of those men...

The general's grip on the top of Ed's hair grew tighter, and the younger man pressed his lips together, determined not to make the little noise that threatened to escape.

“No,” he said, low, “I'm not trying to humiliate you. I'm going to show them how I own you.” His descent to one knee brought the two almost to eye level, but somehow intensified the power difference between them. The back of the hand that held the collar reached out, stroked Ed's cheek with rough knuckles – he was lost under the raw desire that lit Roy's eyes.

“Maybe you own me,” said Ed, quietly, with the last edge of his defiance, “but they don't.”

“No,” agreed Roy, releasing the top of Edward's head to have a second hand with which to affix the collar to Ed. Ed bit his lip, shivering. “But you'll let them think they do, for the night. You'll let them think they do because I want you to.” The collar settled, heavy, on his neck. “Isn't that right – _Fullmetal?_ ” he growled, into Ed's ear. The blonde whined as Roy bit down, then soothed the mark with his tongue. “I could ask you to do anything, things that scare you, things that you think ought to make you feel ashamed of yourself. Those men could ask you to do anything. But really,” he said, his mouth moving down Ed's neck with its words and spice-hot breath and scraping teeth, “you'll be proud of yourself, because it's your body turning them on so much, it's your actions, your reactions, your noises: you're the one in control, here. You own all of _them._ ”

Then Roy bent down and kissed him, softly, tongue dipping in to caress Edward's own, his last concession to their bond with one another. He pulled away, brushing a hand across Edward's cheek.

“Be proud of yourself, Edward. Always be proud of yourself,” he said, with a slight crinkle of his eyes that might have been the beginning of a smile. Then without warning, the expression was gone: he clenched the collar hard in his right hand and stood up, yanking Edward to his feet as well. Spots began to appear in Ed's vision as the blood in his neck forced its way past the collar and up to his brain, down to his body, and god the way those men were _looking_ at him –

Roy flipped him around, so the ridge of his arousal pressed into the small of Ed's back, tiny motions of his hips grinding the hardness into his skin. Facing the men, now, with nothing to block their view, he felt each gaze as he would a knife.

Embarrassment crept up on him again, unrelenting, but it was no match for the shot of excitement that sparked to his groin when Roy said:

“Gentlemen, come undress him.”

The words were met with possessive noises, soft encouragements, a growled “Fuck, yes” as the men stepped forward to touch him, run their hands across him. Roy released the hand on Ed's collar and instead twisted a length of his hair between long fingers, then jerked that back until his neck was bent painfully, but it was a good pain – the adrenaline was pumping through his veins, leaving him lightheaded, giddy.

One stranger's hand slid up his shirt, began to thumb at a nipple, and Edward hissed in a breath as he felt it begin to harden under the touch: the man gave a low, rumbling laugh, and did it again.

Ed whined, his mouth half-open to allow his shallow panting its escape. An anonymous hand came down to cup Ed's erection: he flailed on instinct – no-one had ever touched him there but _Roy,_ no one had ever wanted to, with the metal and the scarring, except now the possessive grin on the man's face as he massaged the hardness between Edward's legs was fierce enough that it had to be genuine.

“You like it hard?” Roy asked, a deep rumble against Ed's back. “Do you enjoy being touched like this?”

Another set of hands began to unlatch the buckle of Edward's belt, even as the first man twisted Ed's nipple viciously.

“Answer me,” Roy said, purring.

“Haah,” said Edward, as best as he could. “I – ah –”

“With words, Edward.”

He managed to collect himself for just a moment, beyond the caressing hands, the teeth – oh god, a stranger's _teeth_ – nipping at the skin above his waistband, the other hand that had slid behind Ed, between him and Roy, under his pants to squeeze the skin of his ass.

“Oh, god,” he said, voice dry and cracking. “Yes. I do like it. Please.”

He was rewarded for his effort by a hard pinch from Roy's hand to his nipple, by Roy's teeth sinking down into the flesh of his shoulder so hard that it might bleed, would certainly bruise – fuck, his cock was throbbing.

“Alright, Marcus. Enough with the teasing, for now. Tear his shirt off.”

And Edward's tank top ripped around him, fell to the ground. Rough hands unfastened the last of the restraints on Edward's pants, leaving them hanging low on his hips, wide open.

A man growled at the sight before him, and Ed could move his eyes just far enough to see that the owner of the voice had his hand fisted loosely around his cock to stroke himself at a leisurely pace. Then, the man's hand left his cock and slid over Ed's face: he shoved two fingers into Ed's mouth, past tight lips, and said:

“Suck, boy. Make it good.”

And Edward did, suppressing a groan at the back of his throat: he sucked and stroked the fingers with his tongue, twirled it around them, pretended it was Roy's cock in his mouth. He was hard, so hard, and even harder when the men at his waist pulled down his pants, his boxers, leaving him entirely exposed.

“Wait,” said Roy, stopping the men in their tracks. “Leave them bunched up at his knees.” They did as requested: and somehow, this made him feel dirtier, an instrument of intense, immediate lust. Everything from his thighs upward was bare to their eyes, open to their inspection, available for their carnal needs. The garment around his knees kept him bound, unable to defend against their gazes, their touches.

A hand ghosted over his cock, making it twitch and drawing a cry from Edward's unwilling throat. God, they knew exactly how much they were affecting him, they could hear it every time he opened his mouth, felt it in how his traitorous body moved against them, unbidden. He writhed against Roy's restraining hold on him, tried to kick, tried to fight it, fight _them,_ fight how much he wanted that strange hand that slid between his legs and pressed at his most private places before pulling away.

And with that, Edward felt something warm, something – wooden? – brush up against the skin of his stomach: pain blossomed in his nipple as that warm something clamped down on it, sending shocks of pain radiating through his whole chest.

A thoughtless whimper escaped Ed's parted mouth: it hurt, not as much as so many other things he had been through, but it was all mixed up with these weird feelings of shame and need that clouded his mind, that he loved, that he was so afraid of. He looked down at his chest to find a clothespin there, latched onto that sensitive nub, and to see that Roy was opening another to attach to the skin next to it, and another, then another, until they hung in a line from one nipple to the other. Each clamp was tied to the next by string, and all pulled heavily at his skin, a line of fire across his chest.

“Now,” started Roy again, slipping a hand down the cleft of Edward's cheeks and teasing at his entrance: this was more familiar, this was right, this was good. Ed relaxed into his lover's body. “Touch yourself for us.”

Heat rushed to Edward's face. One last bubble of protest rose to his lips.

“I – I can't do that. Fuck, I don't know how to –” a sudden squeeze to his cock left him briefly speechless, breathless “– put on a show,” he finally finished.

“Don't worry about that,” said Roy in his ear, the roughness of the sound a delicious comfort. “I will direct you if you're in need of direction, but I doubt that you will be. You're something of a natural.” Then, more forcefully, when the younger man hesitated: “Edward,” he growled, threatening.

Ed brought his hand to his cock: it was hard as steel and hot, heavy in his palm. He began to move it, just slightly: that was good. A larger motion made his breath catch in his throat: that was better. He shut his eyes against the sensation of being pinned under their stares, but that only made his hearing more acute, and he heard the room fall silent around him.

They were listening to him, holding their breaths and straining to hear every gasp, every hiss of pleasure Edward made. Did they... _like_ hearing him? Did it turn them on?

A throaty moan clawed its way from his mouth as his thumb scraped over the top of his cock. Six voices answered his noise, with groans or panted breaths or worshipful words on half-breaths. He let his eyes slide half-open again, gaze falling down to where his tight fist stroked his cock. It was flushed, dusky red at the tip, and he switched hands: his metal one encircled it, even as his left hand traced down to his balls. He squeezed down and cried out again: the pain from his cock merged with the pain of the clamps on his chest, leaving him dizzy, lightheaded, completely high.

A hand reached out to brush his stomach, the skin of it hot on his own. Then, it moved up, teasing at the clamp, at the string it attached to.

“May I?” asked the voice that hand belonged to, but it couldn't have been speaking to Ed because nobody would ask his permission for anything, then. They were not equals. He didn't have to make any decisions that night.

“In just a moment,” said the General's voice: then, he put on the full force of his authority. “Edward, _stop._ ”

Edward froze in place, his automail hand still encircling his cock, but he whimpered at the sudden retreat from the edge he had been fast approaching.

“Now, Anton, Jan. Take his arms and pull them apart. Hold him there,” Roy ordered, and before Edward could even think to do anything, those two had moved forward to grip his arms in their own. They pulled his limbs out straight from his sides, level with his shoulders, and kept him there, their arms securing him as tightly as any rope.

Ed struggled against firm hands, muscled arms more on principle than anything. Some part of him wanted to prove how much stronger he was than these men, than any of them, but that thought fell away as he felt a slight tug on the string attached to the clamps on his chest.

“Now,” said Roy's voice, rough and commanding and yet still lustful. Ed didn't even have to see him to know how much he –

A sudden flash of pain interrupted his train of thought as a tug to the string pulled off all of the clamps on his chest, from nipple to nipple. At the same time, lips came down to surround the head of his cock in a tight, wet heat, and Ed's body couldn't take it anymore, careening to the edge of orgasm –

– and then the lips were gone again, and Edward sobbed. The throb of his testicles actually hurt more than the sharp pain on his chest: he _had_ to get a hand down to his cock.

“Oh god, please don't do this,” Edward said, writhing, pulling, and finding himself unequal to the task of escape. “Please don't leave me like this. Please just touch me.”

“You know, you might want to be more specific in your requests,” said Mustang, smirk raised, voice promising. “If you're not careful, you might get what you ask for. Erik?” he said, and though Ed couldn't see the general, he knew that a silent exchange between the two men was occurring. Then, he saw one man draw something out of his pocket with a gleam in his eye: the pencil-sized metal rod he held in his hand telescoped out to become a thin cane.

Why would caning be a punishment? His mouth went dry as he stared at it, his body reacting instantly to the sight of the toy. The pain of a hard blow was almost as good as a touch to his cock, or sometimes better. He needed something, needed _anything,_ any kind of stimulation at all.

“Beg for it one more time,” the man growled, fixing the fingers of his free hand around Edward's jaw, his hard breaths hot across Edward's lips. “Beg for it.”

His need overcame his pride, and a red flush colored him from cheek to collar.

“Please, touch me. Touch me,” he said, words scraping and broken and needy –

And then, Edward felt the strike: not against his cheek, his side, his chest, but delivered straight to the hardness between his legs.

He cried out, then, for the first time, as fire shot up and down his length – a second blow came, right to his balls – and without further warning, orgasm hit him like a wall, flooding through his whole body and sweeping him away. Wordless, unconscious cries tore from his mouth as he rode out the shocks, body convulsing and jerking forward as he emptied himself all over the floor in white spurts.

The room stayed silent for a few moments afterward, as Edward's ragged breathing slowly quieted, and evened out. He was suddenly glad for the men who held him up by his arms, because he wasn't entirely sure that he could stand at that moment.

“Good god, Edward,” said Roy's growled voice in his ear, as the silence became less sacred. “You can come from getting your balls beaten when you're hard?” Heat pressed up against Edward's back.

Ed reacted with a whimper – fuck, that sounded so wrong, but –

“I'll have to remember that,” he said, sliding a hand around to pinch at Ed's nipple. He groaned – they still stung after the torture they had just received. Then, louder: “I never get tired of the way you look when you come. You're tempting me so much right now.”

Then, Marcus interrupted with a hand to Ed's now-softening penis. Ed tried to jerk back in shock, the over-sensitive skin unprepared for any more stimulation, but with Roy behind him and the two men to his sides, he couldn't. He whined instead, writhing as that hand squeezed his cock, but it was too soon for even that painpleasurewant to get him hard again.

“I'm done being tempted. I want to take him now,” the man said, and when Ed met his eyes he saw that they were as dark and lustful as the general's.

“But we have so much left to do,” Jan purred, from Ed's right. “We don't want to wear him out too quickly.”

“But he's not even up right now,” Marcus said, his meaning clear from the continuing stroke of his fingers on Ed's cock. “I won't touch his pretty cock while I fuck him. With any luck, he'll be hard as hell again by the time I'm done with him, and then he'll be yours.”

Roy considered this, finger drifting in lazy circles down Ed's stomach.

“Alright,” Roy said, finally, his voice smoldering. “How do you want him?”

Those words triggered an intense wave of nervousness in Ed, followed by a cold rush of adrenaline.

“I want him bent over, right here,” the man growled: Ed couldn't see him, but he had a feeling that the man had his cock out and was stroking it, savoring the sight. Roy pushed away from Ed's back and stepped around the two men who still held his arms.

“Yes,” said Roy as he came to a stop right in front of Edward, then grabbed Ed's hair and forced his head down, bending him over so that his bare ass was the most prominent part of him. The two men holding his arms changed positions to keep his arms straight, parallel to the floor and level with his body.

Roy's hand twisted painfully in his hair, and Ed's muscles lost all ability to resist.

“You look so good like that,” said Roy, pulling even harder. “So good.”

And then, two unfamiliar fingers slid into him, and Ed made an embarrassing noise of shock, trying to thrash away.

His heart pounded through him as he took in this new sensation: for a moment, panicked thoughts rushed through him, and he wondered if he should maybe just take it all back, recant, say that he had made a horrible mistake, that he wasn't ready, that the eyes and hands of strangers on him scared him too much.

He didn't know how someone could be ready to get fucked by a bunch of strangers in front of an audience. Shame, forgotten in the face of his arousal, raised its head again, teeth bared.

But even as one of Roy's hands kept Ed's head in position, the other had moved to his neck, brushing up and down, soothing, as if sensing Ed's inner turmoil and moving to comfort him.

He could do this. Really, he could. The stranger's fingers crooked downward, missing the sweet spot inside of him, but on the second try – or maybe it was the third – he felt that spark that warmed him through, forced his breath out in a deep sigh.

_You can stop this at any time, if you want. You know what to do._

Then, the man behind him groaned: and Edward became aware of the erections pressing up against his restrained arms. It occurred to him then that they _wanted_ him, wanted to fuck him and wanted to own him.

Suddenly, shockingly, Edward felt both desired and desirable: every man there had chosen to be there that day, and the evidence of their arousal was apparent enough. Nobody was forcing them to fuck him, and the sheer lust in their expressions had to be genuine.

Just as suddenly, he wanted that cock inside of him, wanted to feel the hot throb of the man's orgasm and the semen dripping out from between his legs. He wanted to know that the man had come, and that _he_ had made it happen, with his body and his actions and his voice. He wanted the man to remember this night for the rest of his life.

“God, Marcus,” he groaned, putting just a tinge of desperation into his voice as he thrust back onto those fingers. “Stop teasing me and just _fuck_ me. _Please,_ ” he said, not even caring that he had sworn he wouldn't beg them.

That affected his audience more than he had thought possible: this one concession, begging, had put him in more control of the situation than he had ever been. The men around him growled, groaned, said words that meant nothing by themselves but together meant, _fuck, I want that, I want **you** ,_ and then hands pulled the cheeks of his ass apart – he could feel every puff of air on the sensitive muscle there – and the evidence of that beautiful stranger's arousal came to rest, slick, at his entrance.

The first part of the thrust was always the hardest, for Ed, as his body tried to remember what to do. He parted for that cock slowly: the burning sensation of it was nowhere near the pain of being whipped, or putting his automail back in, but it was good nonetheless. He almost wished that the man had just fucked him dry, but he knew that some fantasies weren't meant to be reality.

Another inch of that cock split Ed down the middle, and he groaned, the burning sensation translating into a growing ball of sparks in his loins.

“He's so tight,” Marcus said, voice tight and straining. “God, I haven't had an ass like this in years,” he said, and pushed himself in a bit deeper. It was too slow: he wanted the man to start pounding into him until the thrill of the pain saturated him.

An attempt by Ed to thrust backwards onto that cock, to make it go faster was aborted by a sharp tug to his hair. The pain fed the fire in his belly, and Ed's voice came out a cracked moan. His crotch began to stir again, though he was far from hard, still.

And then, without further warning, the hot length of flesh shoved in to the hilt in one smooth motion: yes, that was it, that was perfect. The man pulled out, then shoved in again, not bothering with being slow or soft this time, and Ed whimpered his encouragement.

The one thrust moved into another, and another, each one faster until the man was pounding into him in a frenzy, and with every stroke the head of his cock hit that sweet place inside of him. That blissful pleasure blended with the burning sensation at his entrance – the pain of that hard grip on his hair – the helpless sensation of being held down, utterly unable to move – the sound of every half-spoken compliment, stiffening his cock nearly back to full readiness.

The man bent down over Ed's back until sweat-damp skin touched in all the ways that skin can touch, one hand hot on a nipple, the other still on Ed's hips, forcing him forward, then slamming him back even as he thrust into the younger man's body.

The rhythm sped up, then faltered and came together until there was no rhythm at all, just the frantic slide of skin on skin – and then a groan, a heavy pulse inside of Ed as the man filled him with his seed in bursts, each thrust growing shallower, paler, until he was still.

When the man finally pulled out, his semen began to drip down the insides of Edward's legs. He knew the sensation well, but somehow it felt different when it wasn't Roy's come spilling out of him. Marcus panted behind him, noise heavy, and the feeling of Mustang's fingers digging into his scalp was intense and all-encompassing.

“Good boy,” said Mustang, bringing his other hand down to finger Ed's collar, “Good boy. You're such a good pet.”

Ed tried to open his mouth, tried to speak, but couldn't, so settled for a wordless noise of acknowledgment.

Then, Mustang pulled him up straight by his hair, allowing his gaze to flicker about and take in the scene around him: the men in their group whose hands weren't occupied with Edward had their eyes on him, their hands stroking their erections as they enjoyed the show. Around them, activities in the rest of the room seemed to have ceased: many of those who hadn't been invited to join were watching, sharp-eyed, from their couches and chairs, and pleasuring themselves as well. One woman dressed sparsely in strips of black leather sat on a table with her legs spread, her knees up, one finger sliding in and out of herself as she locked intense eyes with Edward's.

He shivered. He felt like a circus animal, on display to do his best tricks – and they all seemed to _like_ it, to like _him,_ to like his body and the things he said and the way he moved.

He had a room full of strangers touching themselves, at his will. For a brief moment, he swelled with pride, feeling the power of submission – but then, Roy growled, and said:

“Bind him,” and all of that sense of his own power was lost under a renewed tide of his need, as everything in Ed's world focused down to the general's face, his lips, his hands in Ed's hair.

Distantly, he noted that his wrists had been brought in front of him, that deft hands cuffed them together, then hooked them to a chain. A tug against the chain pulled his hands into the air, drawing his body into a long line, forcing all of his weight rest on the balls of his feet. He pulled against the restraints above him, to see if he could get more leverage, put his feet down more firmly on the ground, but to no avail: he hadn't really thought that his halfhearted effort would result in anything, but he had to try, anyway, his last attempt to satisfy his pride.

By this time, he was hard again – the sharp edges of metal cuffs on his skin, the cold touch of air on his back, heightened his anticipation.

“Anton,” Roy's voice came, silky smooth and utterly controlled as his hand came down to squeeze Ed's ass, “Get your whip out.”

There was a rustling, as if from a bag, behind him – Roy leaned into his ear, close enough that Ed could feel him as if those lips were touching him.

“You have no idea what you do to me, Edward Elric,” he said, hotly, that hand sweeping up and down bare skin. The man's erection pressed against the small of his back, giving truth to his words. “And have you seen how these other men are watching you? You do the same thing to them.”

Ed closed his eyes, the sound of Roy's breathing and his own mixing harshly in his ears, drowning out the cacophony of silence beyond the space filled by the two of them, alone –

and then Roy pulled away, and Ed would have been disappointed by the absence if his body hadn't reacted instantly to the crack of a whip behind him. The general stepped around to his front, his hands folded behind his back, the carriage of his head imperious, regal.

The first blow of the whip hit him, and Ed caught a sharp breath in excitement. It was barely anything, hardly painful at all, but it promised so much. The second stroke was harder, earning a more cutting breath to match. The third almost stung enough to be satisfying, certainly enough to make his cock throb, to make his want glisten wetly at the tip.

And all the while, Roy watched him, his serious expression growing into a twitch of a smile, then a smirk.

The next strike actually _hurt,_ and Ed moaned, the burning stripe of it exquisite on his back. Another strike, and another, another, another – Ed was whimpering, because _god_ his back was on fire and his cock was steel, and he wanted to touch himself, to relieve this intense pressure, but the chains kept his hands far away from his pressing need.

The most savage blow yet crossed all of the others, blended with them, forcing Ed's throat into a sharp cry.

Adrenaline coursed through him, the fear and excitement and want a heady cocktail in his blood: as the endorphins raced to match the adrenaline, he found that each blow, though more severe, hurt less. The sound around him grew dull, muffled, distant.

The pain of it all only made the sensation of lips – soft lips, wet lips – coming down to the head of Ed's cock better, the wild pleasure matched immediately by dread: he knew that the general never used mouths to satisfy him when they were playing, only to drive him mad. Nevertheless, he cried out in earnest that time, his mouth hanging open, his eyes half-lidded and locked with the General's. Another stroke lined him from shoulder to the crack of his ass, and another, nearly parallel to it.

Then, suddenly, the mouth was gone, and so was the whip, and Edward whined – bereft, relieved, aching.

“That's good,” Roy purred, after a moment, and took a few steps forward to run the pad of his thumb down Ed's cheek. “Good boy.” Then, leaning in closer, his tongue and lips flickering over Ed's ear as he spoke: “You're gorgeous. You know how much they want you.” Just the barest hint of teeth on the shell of his ear: Ed's whole body flinched away, his arousal sharpening every sensation. “I want you. God, I want you,” he said, lower, rougher, as his gloved hands slid up Ed's back, and down: the soothing gesture made Ed whimper, the sharpness of the cloth stinging on his new welts.

The general bent over for just a moment, traveling down the front of Ed's neck to nip at the leather of his collar. The blonde let his head fall back to allow his lover access: gloves ran up and down his sides, the feeling all the more intense because of the lightness of the touch.

The room was light and indistinct, foggy around him as he felt himself being removed from the manacles, felt his weight shift back to the entirety of his feet, where it belonged. He shuddered, and found that his muscles couldn't support him: his right leg collapsed, sending him careening sideways, but Roy was there to catch him. The whip marks on his back burned in contact with the cotton of Roy's shirt.

“How are you?” the general asked, softly enough that the other men would hear no words, but only indistinct murmuring. The warm arms wrapped around him were a whole world, and Ed let himself lean into his lover's chest. He wanted touch between his legs, _needed_ it, but right then, answering the general's question was more important.

“I –” said Edward, trying to get control of his lips again. With some difficulty, he managed: “Yeah. Um. Good.”

“Good,” said Roy, biting Ed's earlobe hard, which earned him a whimper. “But we're not done with you yet.” The growling, possessive sound of his voice robbed Ed of any further possibility of self-control.

This adrenal high that filled him – the dizziness, the feeling of distance from himself and everything else, almost like being drunk but different, better – had never been so strong, before. He was actually and physically intoxicated by his own endorphins: they turned pain into pleasure, humiliation into need, sharpened sexual stimulation... He couldn't get enough of this feeling, his heart beating a million miles an hour, his breath singing through his body, every hair sensitive to pleasure, pain inconsequential or delightful. Every time Roy beat him, or whipped him, or bound him, this delirium overtook him – sometimes weakly, sometimes intensely, but never before had he felt so utterly in its grip.

He didn't think he even could have refused an order at this point, if Roy had given it. All thoughts of safe words or safety had fled: his rational mind was lost to him. All he knew was that he was at peace with this, with what they wanted to do to him or wanted him to do for them, whatever it might have been.

And then, he heard:

“What do you say, boys?” asked the general, behind him. “I think he's ready, don't you?” Roy made his own readiness apparent, grinding his erection into the crack of Ed's ass. There were some murmurs of assent. “Good.” Roy picked him up, bearing his whole weight in both arms, and Ed didn't even mind. He lay there, boneless, and allowed his commander to do with him what he chose.

His commander set him down on some sort of chair, then, or maybe a bed, or table – the man sat down behind him, arms still wrapped around him – then, Ed heard:

“Alright, boys. Spread his legs for me.”

And then, he felt hands around one leg, and the other: some conscious part of his mind looked on in horror as if from above his body as the hands grabbed him, pulled his legs apart, held him there – laid open completely, everything on display for whoever cared to look. Roy's body remained solid at his back, arms encircling, supporting, knees up on either side of Edward's body, keeping him steady.

Marcus's come had dried in sticky rivulets between his legs, and Anton bent over to lap at it, dark hair falling in his eyes, meeting Ed's half-focused gaze as his tongue bathed Edward's skin. The blonde's lungs jerked, stuttered, as that tongue found his entrance, swiped a broad, hot line up the crease without warning. Roy's hands brushed across skin until they found Ed's nipples, tweaked them softly, then harder, and Ed was drowning, there was no other word for it – he closed his eyes, took a breath –

Then, a hard cock sheathed itself in him to the hilt, without waiting for more preparation. Ed cried out in surprise: then, the man began to move, and Ed's breath pitched outward, light and frantic, as the man's movements became smoother, more confident –

– then he heard a moan from deep in the general's chest as each of the stranger's thrusts pressed Ed up against Roy's erection, and a strange hand slid between foreign bodies, stroking Ed's cock, making him grind his hips up into that pressure. Breath pressed against his ear, heating the shell of it in quick puffs: it belonged to a different man, and there were six bodies on his, touching him. The general watched the obscene slide of a wettened cock in and out of him in fascination, his lips parted even as his hands clenched at Edward's sweat-salted skin.

After seconds or years, there was a groan from in front of him, and the man between his legs came inside him with a hard thrust and rhythmic swells. Edward's own cock was throbbing with need, but lacked for stimulation. He was on the edge, he was burning, but couldn't cross that edge without something else.

A second cock, Erik's, teased his entrance for a moment, then split him down the middle, though the man tried to be gentle: Ed gave a wanton moan, neck twisting and bunching as the hardness stretched him almost beyond what he thought he could handle – the heavy thrust of that cock inside of him made Ed's position on the edge just that much more precarious.

The man orgasmed quickly, thrusting jerkily as his breath came out in hitched, shuddered moans. His body carried him through orgasm for an impossibly long time, spilling his pleasure into Edward until he was fuller than he had ever been. When he pulled away, the combined seed of three men dripped from Ed's entrance to the floor.

Before Ed even had time to recover from the last man, another had positioned himself between Ed's legs and begun the press inward: this man moved infuriatingly slowly, sliding in and out at a pace that nearly made Ed sick with the need for more, for faster. He writhed, trying to increase the pace with frantic thrusts, but Roy held him still.

“No, don't move,” Roy rumbled in his ear, arms fastened tight around him. “You're going to take what he decides to give you, whatever that might be.”

That slow slide inside of him was maddening: every time the other man pushed in, the tip stroked Ed's sweet spot, but so lightly that it did nothing to help, only tightened the knot of arousal in his stomach. The very tip of the general's finger traced over Ed's nipple and Ed sobbed, a raw, broken noise, writhing in hopes of some more stimulation.

“Please, please, _please,_ just fuck me harder,” he said, as fingernails dragged up his sides, barely there. The man continued his maddeningly slow pace – he might even have _slowed down_ – and Ed wailed, and bucked his hips again, to no avail. A finger traced against the tip of his cock, light enough to actually be painful. “Oh no, don't do this, please, _please,_ I want you to take me hard, I want you to –”

And then Conrad came with a hoarse cry. He stayed there for a moment bent over Edward's form – god, he wasn't moving, all Ed needed was for the man to move, to give him something, _fuck_ – but after a moment, he pulled out, and the infuriating pain of the finger pulled away, just as unexpectedly as it had arrived. Edward couldn't tell if he was relieved or _so_ disappointed.

After a minute that lasted a year, where Ed's testicles crawled and clamored for anything to relieve the pressure – he was going to _burst_ – Jan finally positioned himself between Ed's legs.

This man was, thankfully, more needy than the one before him: he pounded into Edward without prelude, hitting Ed's sweet spot over and over until Ed had absolutely no control over the senseless noises that were coming from his mouth.

“Wait, Fullmetal,” said Mustang's rough voice in his ear. “Don't come yet. Don't come, until I tell you that you may.”

That growled order alone sparked more arousal in him than the cock of every man before him. Imminent release wrung a wail from Edward's raw throat, the sound cracked, broken, as his body hit its peak – but his commander saw what he had done, and flashed his hand down to squeeze the base of Ed's cock in a choke-hold, cutting off the orgasm before it could even start. He heard himself sob, whimper – how could the general _do_ that, didn't he know how horrible the denial was? – and Roy stroked his chest, comforting, as the other man continued to pound Ed's ass.

Edward was hurting, all over. His arousal was like a tide, his body a dam, and the force of the water was beginning to crack the brick. He clung to the last vestiges of his self-control, because General Mustang was the only sanity he had left and the general had ordered him to stay there, and so he had to.

The last stranger finished inside of him, and Edward threw his head back: as the cock slid out of him, so Mustang slid out from behind him.

The dark look in the man's eyes as he moved to stand in front of Edward was unmistakable, even to Ed's hazed mind. He thought of what he must look like: utterly filthy, debased, sweat mixing with the seed that spilled out of him, with his own come dried in lines below the fresh wetness from his weeping cock.

“Good boy,” the general said, putting a hand to Edward's knee, stroking inward, stroking down. “Good boy. Now –” Ed's whole body paused as Roy did, hung in suspension between one thought and the next. “Come for me.”

And Edward's mind went white, a sudden blankness of thought and knowledge as a scream tore itself from his lips, around a word – some word, he didn't know which – and orgasm wracked his body with a sudden intensity. He barely registered hands on his hips or a new, familiar heat entering him, barely registered anything at all, except that he was still coming, or maybe he wasn't anymore but it didn't matter: his mind was frozen, there, hung immovably in bliss.

He registered – faintly, as if through a thick fog and half a mile away – the pulse of Roy's orgasm inside of him, that the man was whispering some words in Ed's ear as he pulled out – that someone had fetched a wet towel, had begun to clean him up, pressing kisses to the inside of his knee – that someone had picked up his body and moved him to a couch, wrapped him in something warm and soft, that Mustang's arms circled around him, and there were hands in his hair, across his shoulders –

Edward's eyes fluttered shut, then, and he was lost.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hardest.
> 
> Thing.
> 
> I Have Ever.
> 
> Written.
> 
> If you liked it, please let me know! Every single comment you give me makes my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> So I'm going to be posting a little bit more frequently from now on -- not so much because this is going faster than I thought it would but because I came to the realization that at a rate of one chapter every two weeks, it would be another six months before I was done posting this thing, and I just can't do that XD I cannot spend a year of my life on this. I can't imagine you'll be too disappointed if I start posting at a rate of one a week!
> 
> Also, unrelated: be fairly warned that this story is going to have a much larger amount of serious material and much less porn than the last one (which is not to say there will be /no/ porn, of course!) Sorry... but I hope you'll like what I'm doing anyway! I love every one of you who has commented so far.
> 
> And so now, further up and further in, as they say!

**Chapter 3**

*

The only thing that General Weimar could hear as he lay in bed that night was the sound of Meredith's soft breathing beside him as she slept, one pale arm draped around his chest. In all of their overlarge house, only he still stirred, his restless thoughts disturbing all chance of sleep. 

It had been days since he had told that journalist to investigate Mustang, to prove something damning about him, which was a very long time to not have heard back from his pet reporter. He almost wished that he had told Harriet to fuck evidence, to hell with finding sources or whistle-blowers, because Mustang was beginning to settle into his role as General: the man was becoming more dangerous by the minute, and that was the last thing Weimar needed. Mustang's guilt was so blatantly obvious, and many of his crimes so hard to prove, that General Weimar had no qualms whatsoever about using a few less-than-reputable or made-up sources to prove his allegations. 

However, the more rational side of his mind understood that he couldn't be sloppy, not this time, not with something so important: no matter how well the Flame Alchemist had covered his tracks, there would have to be some evidence of his wrongdoing, somewhere. The more evidence the reporter could unearth, the more likely the allegations were to stick, and the more likely it was that the man would go down. So instead of calling Harriet again, Mikhael waited. He could be patient when he had to be.

Still, no contact for over a week...? The man had better start working faster, or else Weimar would begin to reconsider the large sum he had been depositing into Harriet's bank account every few days – depositing in fat wads of cash, just to be certain that there would be no traceable connection between the reporter and the General.

The automail port at his hip ached, as it always did to presage colder weather. At least the cold was generally more bearable than the heat: he preferred his body's dull ache to the memory of scorching sun and sand and blood on his tongue. Would it be fall already before his patience would be rewarded?

As if reacting to Weimar's thoughts, the phone by his bedside rang, startling him from his reverie: Meredith shifted in her sleep, and Mikhael threw a hand out to pick it up before the jarring sound disturbed her further.

“Weimar residence,” he said, keeping the snap in his general's voice down to a murmur.

“General, nice to hear you,” said a man on the other end of the line: Weimar recognized that voice. Guy Harriet. His heartbeat quickened.

“And to hear you as well. I've been waiting for your call. Can I assume that you've achieved what you set out to do?”

“Sort of, but not in the way you'd expect. Either nobody's had any proof that Mustang and Elric were screwing before he left the military, or nobody's been willing to give me any, but I've found something better.”

Meredith began to stir beside him, opening sleepy eyes to look at him, questioning.

“Oh?” he asked Harriet, mouth dry with his excitement. “Tell me.”

*

There was something a bit undignified about the Cretan ambassador arriving by train, Roy thought, as he stood at Central station with five military men and one Riza Hawkeye in attendance. Having nothing better to do, he watched the clock intently: five minutes till three. With the stroke of the solid bell that announced the hours, right on the first of three, the train would arrive, bringing Ambassador Rosenthal with it.

He hadn't been able to learn much about her in his research, except that she hadn't come from a wealthy family, or a political one, and had achieved her position by merit alone. That, and she was apparently an excellent player of billiards, a rumor which he fully intended to test at the nearest opportunity.

Although Roy personally had no problem with train travel and found it in fact quite relaxing, he had learned over the years that many ambassadors expected more specialized treatment than being shoved onto a car with the rest of the country's population, where they were vulnerable to thieves and pickpockets and the indignity of being forced to share a seat with a country bumpkin. But, taking an automobile across the full country of Amestris wasn't really an option: that could take weeks, even if she traveled lightly, if she would be able to make the trip at all. Roy couldn't personally guarantee that all of the roads from Central all the way out to the furthest Western provinces were well-maintained, or even still existent. It seemed to Roy that the country's budget for making and maintaining roads frequently ran out about a hundred miles from Central City.

However, the money devoted to the railways always seemed plentiful and well-managed. It would be uncharitable and unpatriotic of Roy to think that this was because the military liked to have an easy route to anywhere, just in case rebellion should stir up. The army liked to travel by train.

There were many disadvantages to the Amestrian system of government, but a few advantages as well, one being that the trains certainly stayed on schedule.

Even though the train was the only real option for Ambassador Rosenthal's journey from her country to his, they at least managed to commandeer a private car and outfit it for a woman of her statue. It was the least the government could do: Roy could only hope that was good enough. Beginning negotiations would be difficult if she had been unhappy with her travel arrangements.

He heard the rumble and clatter of the train perhaps a minute before it came careening into the station, its brakes screaming under the strain of such powerful inertia. The metal beast came to rest just over an inch away from the edge of the station platform, still chugging coal-smoke sluggishly from its smokestack.

He looked quickly down the train to find the twelfth car, chosen because twelve was considered an auspicious number in Cretan culture, and took off towards it. By the time the door slid open with a heavy puff, Roy and his entourage had come to a full stop in front of it, standing at attention, with Roy at the peak of the triangle they formed. Their hands shot up into salutes as she stepped out.

Ambassador Rosenthal was pretty, in a dark sort of way, with skin the color of coffee-with-cream and deep chestnut hair that she had either spent a large amount of time curling while on the train, which would be an admirable feat, or that had the most beautiful natural curl Roy had ever seen. It gathered at her shoulders in a bob, fashionable in a timeless, classic way. Bright blue eyes watched him intently, the color striking against the cream-dark of her skin.

He didn't let his eyes fall below her face. There would be plenty of time for that later.

“Ambassador Rosenthal, it's an honor,” he said, as she put a hand on the rail and descended the steps to the platform. Her dress was off-white, and made of a lighter fabric than was the fashion in Amestris – but then, it was warmer as a rule in Creta than it was in his own country, their painful summers notwithstanding. “I'm General Roy Mustang, and I'm here to be your escort and see to your every need while you're visiting our great country.”

“Very nice to meet you, General Mustang,” she said, her voice lilting, with just a hint of an accent.

She smiled at him, and offered a handshake. Roy extended his own in return, shook her hand, then turned it palm down and bent forward to bring it to his lips. He lingered there, his eyes locked on hers, for a beat, then another, then straightened.

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, his voice low and velvety.

He was sure he caught a tinge of a blush on her high cheekbones.

“Well, General Mustang, you _are_ a flirt,” she said after a moment, laughing. “I see why they picked you to handle me.”

“My dear lady, I have no plans to _handle_ anyone, unless you would like me to,” he said, allowing himself just a hint of suggestiveness. He gestured to his men, indicating that they should open up the luggage hold on the side of the train to get Ambassador Rosenthal's bags. Two of the men broke formation to do so. Then, Roy continued, more seriously: “I'm actually here because I'm the most informed person on the Amestrian senior staff about Cretan culture and politics. I have brushed up on your current affairs, and made myself knowledgeable about the issue at hand. I'm not only your host, but also am head of foreign diplomatic affairs, second only to our great Fuhrer.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, and quirked a smile, shifting her weight to one foot and crossing her arms.

“You're a bit young for that, aren't you? You can't be more than twenty-seven.”

“You might not believe it, but I'm actually thirty-two, madam. And a bit younger than all of the other generals, yes, but I earned the position. I am very skilled.”

He could almost hear Hawkeye rolling her eyes behind him, though he was sure she remained as professional in demeanor as she always did.

The ambassador laughed, and glanced to the side to see Roy's men unloading her baggage from the cargo hold under the train.

“You're funny, sir.”

“I aim to please.”

“I'm sure you do,” she said, with just a hint of the same teasing tone he had used earlier. “And though I thank you for your chivalry, my assistants would have actually handled my baggage. They'll be out in just a moment: they were preparing my papers for the day. I'm sure that they'll be along shortly. Haron! Cyrie!” she called, back into the open door of the train. “Hurry yourselves up, there's a gentleman here who would like to meet you.”

“Yes ma'am,” Roy heard from inside the car, and presently the two assistants filed out of the train, of whom, regrettably, only one was female. She was a bit older than Ambassador Rosenthal, about Roy's age perhaps, but she had kept herself up admirably. She dressed in a pantsuit more or less identical to that of her male coworker, with the exception that hers dipped low to show off her ample assets. The man beside her was young, and looked dreadfully out of place in his own suit.

“General Mustang, this is Cyrie –” a gesture to the woman “– and this is Haron,” she said, with a wave at the man. “They're my assistants. Can I expect to be allowed to keep them with me?”

“Of course, madam. And a pleasure to meet you both.”

Though Ambassador Rosenthal wore a soft linen dress and this new woman a man's suit, it was obvious where the power lay, here. Ambassador Rosenthal smiled prettily, but considered everything around her sharply, and commanded the attention of everyone in the room.

Not so very long ago, Roy would have made it his business to get such a woman into his bed. Even now, he would seduce her, of course: his ability to make others desire him was one of his great weapons, politically and personally, and he was quite proud of his skills. The only difference was that, now, he wouldn't bring her home: his bed already had another occupant, and Edward wouldn't take well to company there.

The young man could still be so adorably insecure with regards to his status in Roy's life. If he weren't so blind, he would see that he had nothing to worry about.

_She is pretty, though,_ he thought, with just a twinge of regret. It had been so long since he had pleased a woman...

But, as always, the thought of an expanse of golden skin over tight muscles and a lithe body – of the way Edward's mouth fell slack when he was lost to sensation – of Edward's nearly-adoring smile when Roy had offered to let the younger man have his alchemy notes, the culmination of years of research – of Edward, bent half-naked over his desk – 

Those images cured any desire the general had for Ambassador Rosenthal, which was probably for the best, anyway.

None of that would stop him from flirting, though. That was just a game, and one that Roy played expertly.

“Now, if you'll follow me this way,” Roy said, putting a hand to the small of her back to guide her in his direction of choice, “I'll take you to the car we have waiting outside. We'll get you settled in at your hotel, and then you and I can talk business. How does that sound?”

“I look forward to it.”

*

“So how was your meeting with Ambassador-lady?”

Roy smiled, picking up his black bishop and moving it to tile F6 on the painted-leather chessboard. They sat across from each other at the chess table in his library – the vintage one with the board built into the wood. It was rarely used, now, but each time he did get to enjoy it was a treat. He smirked, and looked his younger lover in the eye.

“Better than I could have hoped. She seems extremely... receptive.”

Ed's neutral expression turned into a scowl in a second. He slammed his knight down onto C4: not a wise move. He was so easy to rile. Sometimes Roy wondered why the man still fell for his taunts, even after all these years. He didn't mind. 

“What, receptive to your dick?”

“Don't be so crass, Edward. She's a shrewd politician, and a lady besides. I meant that she's receptive to my political stances, of course.”

“ _And_ your dick,” Ed snapped back, crossing his arms. “Don't lie to me, you've been buttering her up, and by noon tomorrow you'll have her ready to let you fuck her in the conference room.”

“I'm flattered that you think so much of my skills in seduction,” said Roy, arching an eyebrow as he perused his options on the board, taking in every detail. He never lost the smirk. “But I have no intention of fucking her in the conference room or anywhere else. We're both professionals. And besides,” Roy continued, more fondly this time, “Why would I want her when I could have you?”

Roy moved his queen to the far side of the board, just barely out of the reach of any of Ed's pieces, as a flush exploded onto the younger man's face. The blonde crossed his arms, and on the whole looked quite put out.

“What? You shit, why would you talk like that if you aren't even gonna have sex with her?”

“Because you're entirely too fun to tease,” Mustang said, putting an elbow on the table and resting his chin on it, smiling at the other man. “I'm a consummate flirt, you know that, and my sex appeal is quite useful in the political realm – no, I'm not modest, I never claimed to be,” said Roy, in response to Edward's snort. “But I wouldn't actually follow through with it. You should know that, too. Everyone else pales in comparison to you,” he said, lightly, and Ed barely even looked at the board before moving his castle.

Roy made his move immediately: his own castle came up from behind to pin Edward's king against the back wall.

“Checkmate,” Roy announced, sitting up straight again as he knocked the white king over with a flick of his finger. Ed looked down at the board again in wide-eyed surprise, as if he had forgotten that they were playing a game. “Care to play another?”

Ed stared at the board again, noticing for the first time how Roy had set him up, pinning his king with both bishops, his queen, and his castle. His scowl became more halfhearted, and he reluctantly allowed himself the hint of a smile as he said:

“Bastard. You're the biggest asshole in history, you know that? I don't even know why I put up with you.”

Roy smiled and started to move the pieces back to their places.

“Another game,” he said, happily.

*

Edward wasn't in Central the day the news broke: he was somewhere in the East, beginning his search for information about a plant alchemist who, rumor had it, lived in the woods somewhere between East City and the town of Grenada. Al didn't know the details: his brother had been bitten suddenly by wanderlust, as he was on occasion, and had given Al only about an hour worth of warning before spiriting off to God-only-knew-where, leaving him in charge of the lab.

Ed hadn't even been gone a day before the article arrived, innocuous, on their front doorstep.

Looking at the newspaper, feeling drawn and tired and sick, Al wasn't sure if he was glad of his brother's absence or not. On the one hand, Ed would want to be near General Mustang as soon as possible after this, and so his distance was inconvenient; on the other hand, he could be warned about the news ahead of time, and the inevitable explosion that would result would happen far away from Central. Hopefully, the train ride would cool him down some, and he would think better of coming home and laying waste to the man who had written this article.

The most pressing issue was that Ed became quite impossible to get hold of when he caught the travel bug. He might not stay in the same town for two nights in a row, and he almost never knew what town he would be in on any given night, so the only thing Al could do if he wanted to talk to his brother was sit and wait by his telephone until it rang. He knew that Ed would call: he still checked up on Al obsessively when they were apart, as if he thought that his little brother might just disappear without proper care and attention.

When the phone finally rang, Al yanked it up off of the receiver and clutched it to his ear.

“Hello?” he asked, hoping it was actually his brother.

“Yo,” said Edward, sounding his normal, cheerful self. So he hadn't heard. “How goes, Al?”

“Brother,” said Al, and he was surprised by how desperate his voice came out. “Oh god, I'm so glad you called. I didn't know where to reach you.”

“Sorry, I meant to call after I got into town last night, but I was so tired I ended up just crashing. Did something happen? Are you okay? Is Roy okay?” He paused, thinking, but not long enough for Al to get a word in. “Nobody had better have tried to assassinate the stupid bastard. I'd kick his ass myself for being so reckless.” 

Al almost laughed: at the very least, it wasn't _that_ bad. Ed did have a way of putting things in perspective.

“No, nobody's dead. I'm fine. Roy's – well, I don't know how 'fine' he is, but he's not injured. And there was no assassination attempt. Well, there was, sort of.”

“Just say what you're trying to say, Al.”

“Sorry. It's hard to explain.” It really wasn't terribly difficult to explain, he just didn't want to have to. His mouth and his brain were working at cross purposes. “Just – get on the next train back home, and when you find someone with a copy of the Central Times, borrow it. Nobody's dead,” Al added, just in case his brother wasn't clear on that point. “But... some reporter named Guy Harriet found out about Roy and – well, _you._ It's not a pretty story when you tell it the wrong way, and he definitely told it the wrong way.”

The silence between them sounded like shock, and sounded like fury.

“Motherfucker,” growled Edward, and Al thought that he might be able to hear the phone creaking in his brother's metal hand. “What does this reporter think gives him the fucking right to butt into our lives? How bad is it, scale of 1 to 10?”

“Probably about a 9. There are no actual inappropriate photos of you two, but he has everything else, and some stuff he made up besides.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I checked the timetables, and there's a train from East City to Central at 9:30. Are you still in East City?” 

“Yeah.”

“Good. You ought to be able to catch it if you run, depending on how far you are from a station. But Ed, promise me you won't go hunting the guy who wrote this thing down until you've at least talked to Roy.”

“Why the hell would I make a promise like that? I wanna break off his arms and stick 'em where the sun don't shine.”

Al laughed again, the sound thin and tired, but refreshing. He really did love his brother more than anyone.

“As fun as that sounds, you really shouldn't. I'm sure Roy has a plan, and I'm also sure that we don't want to get involved and accidentally ruin that plan by getting mad and doing something stupid. I know it's hard, especially for you, but we have to be rational about this. Otherwise, believe me when I say that I would have hurt him myself by now.”

“But we can't just let him get away with it!”

“Believe me, Brother. We won't,” Al said, cutting, direct, powerful.

When Ed spoke again, Al could very nearly hear his grin, an expression less a smile than a feral baring of teeth.

“You get him good, Al. Get him good, or I'm gonna.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

*

The paranoid hallucinations started with whispers, then moved up to strange looks, then to awkward laughter: it took Roy at least an hour of being at Central Command to decide that he was not, in fact, delusional. Men and women of all ranks seemed to be talking about him behind his back, and the fact that they usually stopped as soon as he turned his head did nothing to make this any less irritating.

He was no stranger to these kinds of whispers: his ambition and charisma had led to not a little bit of bitterness towards him at various times during his career, and he had developed quite a thick skin to deal with it. Ignoring the twittering of the little birds was easier said than done, however, and he finally reached his breaking point when he passed one group in particular: a group of perhaps four men, ranging from private to second lieutenant, who refused to stop their chatter even as Mustang passed within feet of them.

Their laughter was quiet, but vicious, and they threw glances over their shoulders at him as he walked past: their expressions were full of – Roy frowned to see it: how could this be? – casual disgust. General Roy Mustang wouldn't stand for that kind of treatment. He squared his shoulders and turned on his heel to face them, planting himself on the ground as a mountain.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he started, words sharp below a veneer of friendly curiosity. “You seem to be enjoying yourselves. Any chance of you telling me what's so amusing?”

The men, startled out of their discussion, stood up straighter and collectively gained a guilty look.

“Sorry, sir. We weren't talking about anything, sir,” said one, his voice high-pitched and apologetic – Warrant Officer Everett Matthius, Roy remembered.

“My hearing must be failing me then,” said Mustang, faking surprise. Then, a threat flared up in his words. “Or perhaps it isn't. In fact, I'm sure I heard my name dropped in between all of that garbage. Anything you want to say about me, you can say _to_ me, gentlemen. The military isn't paying you to gossip like schoolgirls.”

Though what they could be gossiping about, the general had no idea.

“In fact, you – Private McQuinn,” Mustang said, remembering Terrence McQuinn's name just in time, “go pick up a box of reports I have waiting for me down in records. And Second Lieutenant Lawrence, if you have time to chatter with your friends, you have time to report to the janitorial squad and ask which toilet needs cleaning the worst. If the rest of you still feel like you have free time, I can assign you more things to do. So get moving.”

Lawrence pulled himself up to his full height – just slightly taller than Roy, he noted with some annoyance – and stared the general straight in the eye. Not many people would have the balls to stare down the Flame Alchemist. He had to give the man credit for that.

The man pulled back his lips, and said: “I don't have to do anything you say.” There was fear or anger in his voice – Mustang couldn't tell which, and it didn't really matter.

Roy's stomach caught a burning frost.

“I'm sorry?” he asked, his voice just as icy as his his gut. “I _did_ put my stars on this morning, didn't I? I am a general, and believe me when I say that I can make your lives miserable. I could have you court-martialed for insubordination. I could have you demoted so fast it would make you dizzy. I could send you all back to the little dark holes you crawled from,” General Mustang snapped, every word ablaze.

Beads of sweat had begun to form on Lawrence's forehead, though he didn't back down.

“You're disgusting,” said Lawrence. “You won't be a general for much longer. You're a disgrace to our uniform,” the man said, face twisted half in revulsion and half in a very real fear. Everyone knew that Roy Mustang was a dangerous man.

The general's glance scathed them all, one by one, lingering on each terrified face, before he stepped forward and brought his hands to Second Lieutenant Lawrence's neck. The man flinched away as if Roy were about to attack, but Roy was faster: he moved to Lawrence's shoulder and unpinned the single star on the gold and blue shoulder strap that indicated his rank, then did the same with the other. He tossed them to the ground.

“Report to the quartermaster for a new epaulette today. You're being demoted to sergeant,” he said, casually, then turned to Warrant Officer Matthius and unpinned the single circle from each shoulder. “And you do the same, Matthius. You're down to corporal.” He turned an icy gaze on McQuinn.

“As for McQuinn and – whoever you are,” he said to the last soldier, who he didn't know, though his epaulettes clearly stated that he was a private. “You two are already as low as you can get, so I can't even demote you, but I can ensure that you don't get a promotion for a _very_ long time.” He paused, allowing his words time to sink in. “Now, I suggest you get out of my sight before I lose my patience.”

They didn't take a second to think before taking Roy's advice and turning tail. The general watched them go, then swept around and stalked back to his office, a storm on his face. He slammed the door open and shut it with the same force. Hawkeye and his whole team were arrayed in front of him.

“Major Hawkeye,” he began, dripping fury, “do you have any idea whatsoever what might have inspired a group of privates and warrant officers to call me 'disgusting' to my face and refuse a series of direct orders?”

The general's mind raced: his first, sickening thought had been that his actions in Ishbal had come to light – it was too early for that to happen, dammit, and _he_ had to be the one to do it – but he quickly realized that most of the military already knew about what happened in Ishbal and didn't give a damn. Mowing down Ishballans was no crime in the Amestris military, and why not? There were no consequences for slaughtering animals, after all.

Hawkeye looked at him, solemn. In the bright morning light, he could see lines etched on her face, her eyes beginning to sag with the weight of exhaustion. Havoc watched him with something approaching pity, and Roy had to rein in the sudden surge of his rage – Havoc had done nothing wrong, he reminded himself, but he didn't need their pity, didn't want it. 

“Yes, sir,” said Hawkeye, pushing herself up from her desk. “I have a very good idea. I take it you haven't seen the papers yet.”

Roy strode over to her desk and snatched the offending item off of it, snapping it open in front of his face.

His eyes lit on the first picture, the headline, and as he skimmed across the article his eyes widened, and his heart bottomed out.

*

_Newly minted General Roy Mustang, Hero of Ishbal, may have a dark secret, say sources. New information has come to light suggesting that the man is not a hero, but a pervert, a sadist, and a pedophile._

_Photographs taken by journalists at the Central Times confirm that General Mustang has multiple times been seen entering a bar that is a well-known front for a perverted sex club full of sexual sadism, orgies, and all manner of depravity. Anonymous sources within the establishment suggest that he has been seen there on multiple occasions, engaging in all the activities that the club has to offer._

_“He comes to the club sometimes, yeah,” said one such source. “He was there less than a week ago, with some blonde kid with an automail arm and leg.”_

_The young man in question has proved to be the eighteen-year-old Edward Elric, the hero of the people and alchemical wunderkind. The former Fullmetal Alchemist was only twelve years old when he joined the military under the command of General Mustang. Evidence suggests that the general has lured the young man into a homosexual relationship – a “relationship” which involves this poor, innocent young man being on the receiving end of such sadism and perversities as I leave to the reader to imagine. Other sources suggest that this sexual predation began as soon as Elric entered the military at the age of twelve._

_“The two of them\have been unnaturally close since he first joined the military,” said one military officer, who asked not to be identified. “Mustang let the kid get away with all kinds of things from the very beginning – let him get away with not wearing the uniform, let him spend military time on his own personal projects, paid him more than alchemists twice or three times his age... And they spent a lot of time alone together in that office of his.”_

_Under military law, statutory rape and fraternization with a subordinate are punishable by relieving the offender of his rank and a jail term of at least five years apiece._

_Sources within the military say that General Mustang was on the short-list of men who might replace Fuhrer Hakuro when he resigns from the post. A court martial date has not yet been set._

*

The poor bastard Edward had stolen the newspaper from had absolutely nothing to do with it, he reminded himself. He clenched the paper so hard his automail tore right through it.

“I'm going to kill the son of a bitch who wrote this,” he growled, crumpling the paper in both hands. “I'm gonna fucking kill him.”

Fear crossed the man's face in a flash, and the man took a step back but Ed was way beyond caring. The paper became shreds between his hands, and fell to the floor of the train car in a rain of black and white. Half of the photograph from the front page fluttered, face up, to the other man's feet.

“Listen,” Ed snarled, shoving his finger at the man's chest for emphasis, “don't you pay any attention to the jackasses who wrote this article. Roy Mustang is the best goddamn thing to ever happen to this country. Anybody who doesn't see that is blind and _stupid._ ”

The photograph on the floor seemed to catch the man's attention then: he glanced down, then back up at Ed, then down again. The print was fuzzy, clearly taken in the dark, and the bottom right corner was gone, leaving only a ripped edge. Still, it was unmistakable: it showed Ed and Roy in front of the bar, a back-lit sign well visible at the top of the frame: _“The Forbidden Fruit,”_ it read. His black-and-white copy had his eyes half closed, and was leaning on Roy – _Is that really what I looked like when I got out of there?_ – and Roy was smiling at him, one arm around his waist.

“Wait a minute,” said the man, tentatively, “are you the Fullmetal Alchemist?”

That drew the eyes and ears of everyone in the compartment who wasn't already engrossed in their argument. What was he, some kind of circus freak to be gawked at?

_Shit fuck shit fuck shit why do I keep going and drawing attention to myself? I coulda just sat down and shut up and then nobody woulda known I was here._

“ _Former_ Fullmetal Alchemist,” he snarled instead. “And I'm the fucking expert on my own life, so you listen to me: I'm not _anybody's_ fuckin' lap dog, and nobody fuckin _lured_ me into _anything._ People are constantly deciding that I can't make decisions for myself because I'm too _young_ but I've been a fucking adult for years and nobody seems to even notice! This whole thing is a bunch of sick lies, and you should be mindin your own business anyway. Take my advice,” he said, turning to the rest of the compartment, “if any of the rest of you've got copies of the Central Times, burn those shitrags you call newspapers, then go listen to Roy Mustang make a fucking speech. It'll do you a lot more good.”

The slam of each footstep as Ed spun around and stomped off to the other end of the train car were audible even over the rattle of the wheels across the track. A seat near the front of the compartment had no-one around it for at least five or six rows back: he slammed himself down into it and busied himself scowling out the window.

Whatever Roy's plan was to deal with all of this shit, it definitely couldn't be a better idea than just transmuting the guy into a suitcase, and it was probably way more complicated.

Ed slumped down, chin on the palm of his hand, as he glared out at the misty haze beyond the railroad tracks as if he could set it all on fire just by the intensity of his look. Smudges from the hands of a thousand passengers covered it in lined prints.

The plan was going to have to be pretty damn awesome to keep Ed from storming over to Guy Harriet's place to have a little chat with the man, because his patience was pretty much gone, and he needed a new suitcase anyway.

*

Head reeling, knuckles white, Roy gripped the chair back as he leaned over Hawkeye's desk, glancing once again over black type on grey paper, disproportionally harmful for what it was.

Too stunned even to keep hold of his earlier fury, he looked up at the group of his most ardent supporters: they were watching him, carefully, trying to judge his reaction.

“I see,” said Roy, immensely proud that his voice didn't crack on the words. “Well, that explains that.” He paused. “At least that upstanding piece of journalism was also poorly written, or we might be in some trouble,” he said, keeping his tone light. His men relaxed visibly, though he couldn't say the same for Hawkeye. She knew him too well not to recognize the mask he put on for their benefit. He was their leader, and someday he would be their Fuhrer, and he couldn't expect his men to keep calm if he himself could not. He kept his head high.

Underneath the immovable mask, perfected through long years of practice, his mind was in turmoil.

The worst of it was when they called him a pedophile. His and Edward's relationship hadn't begun until the younger man was two years past the age of consent – and two years past the age when Roy had begun to notice the definition of his muscles; his lean body, without an inch of fat on it anywhere; the strength of his jawline; the way his ass looked in those leather pants. At about sixteen, Roy's more or less academic knowledge that Ed had been an extraordinarily beautiful child and adolescent had blossomed into full-blown attraction. At sixteen he was going on thirty, a young man who was far too old for his years, jaded by the tender age of eleven and yet still determined to hold onto his idealist naïveté in a way that Roy had quietly admired. Perhaps the most extraordinary person that Roy had ever met, Fullmetal had been tantalizing and yet forbidden territory. 

When Edward had still been under the then-Colonel's command, any advances would have been wildly inappropriate: fraternization was something he avoided, not because of the law, but because there was always a chance that his subordinate would be sleeping with him out of a sense of obligation rather than out of any real desire. No matter what the situation, he always wanted to know that his partner was there willingly. Even after Edward had brought his brother back to the flesh and retired from the military, which made the power difference no longer an issue, the younger man had remained extraordinary emotionally vulnerable in his own combative way. Also, he was notably uninterested.

So he waited and ignored his attraction, even as he started to become friends with the brothers. Such thoughts quickly became ordinary, unremarkable: _there's paperwork in my inbox; the secretary has nice tits, I wonder if I can seduce her before the day's out; Lieutenant Hawkeye is out for my head; Fullmetal really should stop wearing those pants._ Roy Mustang was a patient man. He didn't need immediate gratification. 

He hadn't made a move on Fullmetal for a full two years after his sixteenth birthday. He had waited and kept his distance until after Edward had discharged himself from the military, after his greatest goals had been achieved, and after they had finally spent enough time as equals to become comfortable in the role of friends instead of as a superior officer and subordinate. In short, he had only made a move when such a relationship was unambiguously acceptable, in both the moral and legal senses. 

Nobody appreciated the force of will that had taken, to wait and watch from a distance – to not just shove Ed up against a wall in his office and rut against him until he responded – until he threaded fingers through Roy's hair, gasped as Roy sucked at his pulse, moaned when Roy bit down – 

“Good to see you're not too upset about the article,” said Havoc, breaking into Roy's daydream. “If it helps, we don't believe a word of it. Well, we know that some of it's true: you and the kid have been going horizontal recently, but that's not a big deal in the scheme of things. I figure somebody must have it out for you, General.” Fuery nodded vigorously, and Breda leaned back in his chair, one arm crossing his chest and the other tapping a pen against his chin. Falman just watched, his brow wrinkled as he watched everyone, and considered everything.

Roy straightened, kept his voice nonchalant.

“It just so happens,” began Roy, “that a significant portion of it is true.”

There was a stunned silence. After a moment, Havoc actually laughed in disbelief: Roy didn't blame him. The whole thing was actually quite ridiculous. 

“Which parts?” asked Fuery, eyes wide. He fiddled with the pen on his desk without even seeming to notice, absently taking it apart only to put it back together again.

“Well, Edward's and my relationship began only a few months ago, which was long after both his sixteenth birthday and his departure from the military, and an absurd amount of time after the article suggests we began having one. Also, Edward is a full and willing participant in everything we do together. He has not been 'lured' or tricked into anything. Other than that.” A pause. “Other than that, in strictly the facts, it's mostly true, although I am stunned that such a poorly written article made it past the editors' desks at the Central Times. They are usually such a reputable and literate publication.”

There was a pause that was just slightly too long to be comfortable, broken once again by Havoc's laughter.

“Good one, General. You had us there for a second,” he said, grinning around his cigarette. “Funny.”

Roy sighed, ran a hand back through his bangs.

“I'm afraid I'm not joking. That photograph on the front of the paper is quite genuine.”

Another silence. 

“Well goddamn,” said Breda finally, eyebrows arching. “You got caught with the Fullmetal kid going to a sex club? What the hell were you –”

“Don't ask those sorts of questions unless you really want to know the answers,” Roy said, suggestively.

Everybody in the room made a face, with the exception of Hawkeye, who was quite immune.

“Well, at least if you're gonna get your ass burned, you've done something fun on the way there,” said Havoc.

“Gentlemen,” interrupted Hawkeye, in a way intended to remind them that they decidedly were not. “We still have work to do.”

“That's right,” said Mustang, “let's stop gossiping and get someone on damage control.”

How long would it for Edward to find out? How would he react? What would the other man do? Roy wished that he could call and talk to him, but he was god-only-knew-where in some town in the east. Roy could only hope that by the time he heard about it, the whole thing had blown over a bit.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Havoc, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. “So what's our strategy?” 

General Mustang took a deep breath, pushed thoughts of Edward out of his mind, and did his best to stand under the weight of all those expectations.

*

Alphonse Elric caught Riza in the middle of her lunch, which she took at her desk that day: no time to be away from her work and visit the mess hall. A bowl of chicken and dumpling soup sat next to her, ignored, and the case file in front of her was distressingly thin. He had found her carefully inking in everything she knew about the writer of the article next to a grainy mug shot of him that she had cut out from the “About the Editors” page of the newspaper.

“Hello, Major,” he offered, as he came to stand in front of her table. The rigid tension in his shoulders made a lie of the calm smile on his lips. She nodded at him, and put her pen back in the pen holder.

“Alphonse,” she returned, lacing her hands together on the table. “Good to see you. What brings you up to the office today?” she asked, although she could guess at the gist of it.

“I'm here about that article,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “I want to know what the plan is, if that's alright by you.”

Hawkeye thought for a moment.

“Well,” she finally began, “we're starting by investigating the reporter who wrote it. Guy Harriet is his name. He's one of the senior reporters at the Central Times, and also the chief editor of the Society pages. We're looking both for anything in his past that makes him seem like an untrustworthy source, like crimes, which we could then release to other media outlets. We're also looking for any connections to political figures that might shed light on why the man wrote this.”

It was always possible that the man had written it just to be titillating, just for the extra newspaper sales that always followed a scandal, but she seriously doubted it. For this to happen so soon after Major General Mustang's promotion to full general... the timing was too perfect to not have been planned. Someone felt threatened by his presence, for one reason or another, and it was hard not to imagine reasons.

“And have you found anything useful?”

“Not yet.” But it had only been a few hours.

Alphonse nodded, and sat down in the chair on the far side of Riza's desk.

“Well, I have,” he said. “I brought you this.”

And with that, he opened up the leather bag that hung by his side and pulled out a binder, which he put on her desk and slid over to her.

“The minute I read the article, I headed over to the public library. They have an archive of newspapers going back about eighty years. I only really managed to look through the past year, though, before coming over here. In the binder, you'll find an index of all of the articles he's written since September of last year, with titles and key words. If I thought the article was especially important, I summarized it for you guys. They wouldn't let me cut up their newspapers to get you the actual article, though. But at least now you'll know where they are, so everybody can find them and analyze them.”

Hawkeye opened the binder to find, exactly as he promised, a list of article titles, page numbers, and keywords, organized beautifully even by her exacting standards. 

“And you did all of this this morning?” she asked, never betraying a hint of her surprise. She shouldn't even be surprised: she knew that the Elric brothers were both geniuses. Al just lacked his brother's flash and flair, so it was easy to forget that the younger brother was a match to Edward in skill, even if their particular skills often differed widely.

Edward never would have made a list: he would have stormed into the office and told them what he had found out, and if they had asked for any kind of documentation he would have snapped back something like _What the hell do I need to write any of it down for? I remember it all, isn't that good enough?_

Riza much preferred Alphonse's methods.

“Yeah,” Al replied, as she browsed through page after page of articles. “I couldn't go in to the lab today, I was too distracted, so I went to the library instead. Evelyn's handling everything there right now.”

She could hear the sounds of commotion from out in the main lobby of the office complex, and wondered what the team was laughing about, now. She had a feeling that they were trading bawdy jokes about their commanding officer. She restrained her disapproval: she knew that all of them were busily pretending that the situation wasn't nearly as serious as it actually was, and that the chief way they had dealt with it was with humor – understandable, but she hoped the general wasn't anywhere around to hear their conversation.

“This is nice work.”

The young man gave her a brilliant smile, pinking at the cheeks in pleasure.

“Thank you, Major,” he said. “That means a lot, coming from you.”

She crooked a smile in return.

“Alphonse, how would you like to join the investigations team for this project?” she asked. That was probably why he had come: to try to put the idea into her head, so that she would invite him rather than him having to ask to join.

Al's smile turned calmer, pleasant, and he folded his hands in his lap, looking perfectly composed and in control.

“Oh, thank you, Major.” he said. “Yes. I would love to.”

Something about the look on his face reminded Hawkeye of General Mustang, when events were falling into place just as he had planned. She gave a soft laugh and closed the book.

*

Regardless of any personal or professional crises that may or may not have been happening at the time, General Mustang could hardly abandon his duties with regards to Ambassador Rosenthal. There was very little he himself could do about the article at the moment, he knew, and he reminded himself of this at regular intervals throughout the day. His team had full control over the matter. He had to trust them, and get on with the rest of his work.

The ambassador met him at ten o'clock, just as they had planned, in the lobby of her hotel. Some part of him wished that he could call a halt to discussion for a day – or a few days, even – but he knew that he couldn't do that. He had been the one to make the case for how important the Aerugan and Cretan issues were: if he put off discussions for a mere personal problem, then the other generals might begin to question just how important those issues were, and turn their gazes inwards again.

The understanding that he had to continue to perform didn't change the fact that Roy was undeniably distracted, and probably not at the top of his game in any sense of the word.

“Hello, Ms. Rosenthal,” he said as she descended the stairs, each step light and graceful. He gave a sweeping bow, then stood straight and gallantly offered her a hand, though of course she had no actual need of assistance. “You're looking stunning again today, if I may say so.” She did look beautiful: he'd never met anyone who could wear an unembellished white linen dress as well as she could. He would guess that she knew it, too, as her wardrobe seemed to largely consist of such dresses, in different lengths and styles.

“Flatterer,” she accused with a smile, taking his hand for the last step. “I know you say that to all the girls.” Her assistants followed behind her, each carrying a leather briefcase.

“No, only the ones who deserve it,” Roy replied, sweeping around to stand beside her. “I would only ever pay you a compliment if it were true.”

“I'll wager you say _that_ to all the girls, too,” she said, eyes sparkling.

“That doesn't make it less accurate in this case.”

“You're very good at this, sir.” Roy laughed, and took that as the compliment it was meant to be.

“In any case, I trust you slept well? Did you enjoy the breakfast?”

At his request, each morning, room service brought her a traditional breakfast from a different region of Amestris, that she could sample his country's culture. Yesterday, they had brought her stewed flowers from the West. Today's repast had been Southern cuisine, which in this case involved a kebab stick of chicken spiced with hot peppers, next to a kebab stick of sweet and tart fruits, both with a salty yogurt dipping sauce, to satisfy all four of the traditional Southern taste categories.

“I liked it very much,” she said, as they pushed through the doors of the hotel lobby and into the fresh air of the burgeoning fall. On the steps down to the road, she paused, then glanced around, apparently looking for bystanders. Finding none, she looked back to him, and said, “What I enjoyed less was the newspaper that was also brought to my door.”

Roy kept his composure, because he had to. That was what he did. He met her eyes and tried to keep his tone light in the face of her serious expression.

“Oh, well. I hope the hotel staff isn't boring you with one of our less reputable publications.”

“Is the Central Times one of your less reputable publications?”

“Not usually, no.” Roy's pleasant mask remained steadily in place even as he deflated some inside. “However, the article on the front page was of a much lower quality than is their usual standard. I suppose that sensationalism is the fashion in reporting these days,” he finished, with a theatrical air of regret.

“So that article was a lie, then?” she asked, cocking her head to the side, watching him carefully. One thing he had learned about Ambassador Rosenthal in the past three days was that she seemed to be an excellent judge of character, and could sense a liar at a hundred paces. He would have to approach this delicately.

“Not entirely, no, although it is full of lies and half-truths, and such truths as it has are distorted in such a way that they might as well be false.”

“I see,” she said, nodding. She continued down the stair to the sidewalk, and took off in the direction of Central Command, which was less than a ten minute walk from where they stood. “I recognize that it's not any of my business, so feel free not to answer me if you don't wish to, but which parts are true, if I may ask?”

He explained the situation as best as he could without going into too much detail to be professional: he left some aspects of the article up to her imagination, hoping that she would imagine them to be untrue, even if they weren't entirely. 

“I see,” she said again, as they approached the high walls of Central Command. She gave him a little half-smile. “Well, if it helps, I'm not at all bothered by it. In my country, there is a long tradition of great men taking young boys as lovers, though it's less common these days. All of the old emperors were known to do it. It was considered right and honorable for both the older and the younger partner.”

Roy kept his face straight, though he found responding to that statement to be a challenge.

“I would hardly call Edward a 'boy,' although he may be much younger than me. He's been a man for years now,” he replied, pleasantly. “And mentally he was a man long before he was legally. But none of that is particularly relevant, given that my relationship with him is quite a recent thing.”

She nodded, and they passed into the courtyard of the foreign affairs department. She knew where they were headed by this point, and he didn't even have to lead her to the correct door.

“Well, I have to say that I'm very sorry that this is happening to you. I hope it doesn't affect our professional relationship.”

“Oh, no,” he said, expertly weaving through the maze of hallways that made up the building. “I shouldn't think so. This ought to blow over by next week, at the latest. They won't be able to find any proof for their claims, and my team is furiously researching and collecting counter-evidence. All will be well.” They entered their preferred conference room and shut the door. The assistants set their briefcases down on the table and began to ruffle through them, as if hoping to find something.

“I hope so, for your sake. You seem a good man, General Mustang.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” said Roy, because he really did. “But now that all the interesting things have been taken care of, shall we get down to more important business?” he said, pulling a thick wad of carefully folded paper out of his breast pocket and flattening it out to reveal a map of Amestris, with thick red pen-lines drawn on the Western side.

“Yes, I believe we should.” She sat down in her chair, back straight, and was immediately an entirely different person: serious, unyielding, dispassionate. “I have considered the case you presented to me, and intend to prove you wrong. Those western provinces have been historically Cretan, since the early 15th century at least.”

_Maybe, but then we took them over,_ Roy thought, wryly. _We stole them fair and square. And now that they're producing iron, you want to steal them back._

“I'm happy to hear any new evidence you may have provided for your claims,” Mustang replied, then folded his hands on the table and lost himself in the game he played so well.

*

The article might as well have been a work of art: General Weimar only barely restrained himself from cutting it out and keeping it, like a badge, or a trophy. But that might connect him to it more strongly, and he had to keep this quiet.

Still, his good mood was impossible to disguise. Evening on the night of the article's publication found him smiling near-constantly as he helped his wife prepare dinner. Meredith was quieter than usual, listening to Weimar talk about his day, and speaking only to give basic directions on what she wanted done with the vegetables.

After perhaps twenty minutes of this, Mikhael stopped chopping the carrots and turned to her.

“Is something wrong, my love?” he asked her, frowning. “You've hardly said a word since I got home.”

She paused, then looked up at him, her beautiful hair falling in tight waves across her shoulders. After a moment, she said:

“I saw the front page of the Central Times this morning. I know that was your doing.”

The way she said it implied that she expected him to feel guilty.

“Yes? Of course it was. I need to discredit Mustang as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and get him demoted – or better, kicked out and jailed – so that he is no longer a threat to the country or to my own purpose.”

She frowned at him.

“I knew that you wanted to take him down, but I didn't know that it would be like this.” She looked back down at the stir fry on the skillet, and gave the vegetables a stir. “Something about it seems... Well, it seems dirty.”

Weimar put down his knife.

“Of course it's dirty. The things he has been doing are horrible, for a number of reasons. I wish you didn't have to see that article. I wish you didn't have to know such things existed.”

Meredith had never been entirely innocent of the evils of the world, but he wished that he could, at least, protect her from the most disgusting of human habits.

She added more of her sauce to the stir fry without glancing at him.

“Of course what he was doing is very strange, and also wrong. But it seems dirty to me that you would stoop to that level to get rid of your political opponents. General Mustang was charming and kind when we had him to our house for coffee. I understand that his political views would be detrimental to the nation as a whole, but couldn't you take him on honorably? I'm sure that the Fuhrer would come to see it your way if you made your case well enough.”

Part of what he loved about Meredith was her utter faith in people. Her naïveté about the political process was really quite charming. With silver tongs, she took two breasts of chicken off of the skillet and placed them on their own individual plates.

“Meredith, I'm glad you have so much faith in my abilities. And Mustang is charming and polite, as you said – but the fact that he is so charming is a large portion of what makes him so dangerous. His personal charisma has blinded many people to the folly of his political ideas. They see his pretty face, and listen to his clever flattery, and all of a sudden his ridiculous proposals seem really quite reasonable after all. He's an Ishballan apologist, Mary,” he said, those two words spat out like a curse.

“I believe you – he seems the type. And I see that that's wrong. But I can't help but wonder if part of the reason you're attacking him in the way that you are, instead of in any other way, is because you're jealous,” she said, the softness of her tone knifing into him like nothing else could.

The words were an electric shock.

“Because I'm what?”

“Jealous,” she said, even more quietly, lifting the pan up to scrape the cooked vegetables out of it onto their plates.

His mind ran through the possibilities. Jealous of Mustang – for what?

“Why on earth would I be jealous of that man?”

“Why indeed,” she murmured. “Would you put the carrots you chopped on the salad and take your plate to the table, please?”

*

The long day had faded to night by the time Ed arrived at Roy's house, exhausted both from the travel and from the effort of trying to keep his own anger fueled. Eventually, even his prodigious talent for fury had failed him, and the rage had collapsed to be replaced by worry: the best and worst thing about train rides was that they left you with vast stretches of silence, where your thoughts would go on. He could think too much sometimes, and that tendency didn't help him any now: over the course of the trip Ed had imagined a thousand different scenarios, and only about half of which involved him getting a new suitcase. 

Through the curtains of the front window, Edward could see the warm glow of Roy's living room lights. Without knocking, he unlocked the door and went straight inside.

The man sitting, legs crossed, on the front couch didn't really look any different from how he had the last time Edward had seen him. A short glass of what Edward guessed was scotch balanced on Roy's knee, supported only by the light press of thumb and forefinger. Judging from the level of amber liquid in the bottle next to him, this glass probably hadn't been Roy's first. In his other hand, the man held a book: he stared at the pages, and didn't look up when his front door opened.

Ed shut the door and put his key back in his pocket.

“Hey,” he offered, taking off his boots with more respect than usual: he didn't even throw them in a corner, but set them without a fuss onto the wooden rack where they belonged. “How're you doing?”

“You're back early. I take it you've seen the papers?” asked Roy, not even looking at Ed. The affectation of nonchalance didn't help Ed's worry: by this point, he knew what his lover's defense mechanisms looked like.

“Just the one article. Were there more?”

He crossed the room to Roy, sat down by him. Should he move to touch the man? He didn't know. 

“Not really anything important, though another journalist got wind that I was going to be a story and published a rather unflattering biography of me. Reporters have been calling my house left and right, hoping to get some sort of comment. I actually had to disconnect my phone. And it hasn't just been me – even the Hugheses have been getting an extraordinary volume of calls. The reporters keep hoping they'll get some kind of confirmation for their theories from an old friend, I suppose.”

Ed groaned and let his head fall backwards to bounce off the top of the couch. He didn't want to think about Gracia Hughes knowing what he did in bed.

“And Al?”

“He's gotten one or two calls, he says, but your telephone number is not publicly accessible in the same way mine is. You didn't have a number when you were in the military records, and that's probably where they got both mine and the Hugheses' from.”

“Sons of bitches,” Edward said, unable to summon up his earlier fury. 

“Indeed,” replied Roy, without expression. “I had hoped you wouldn't have to hear about this, given that you were in the middle of nowhere when the story broke.” His eyes had stopped scanning the page of his book, resting on one swooping illustration of a transmutation circle, bound on the outside by the encircling dragon.

“I might not have if Al hadn't told me something was up when I called this morning.”

“I see. Of course he wouldn't want to leave you in the dark.”

Edward almost felt like he ought to be offended by the fact that Roy had wanted to leave him in the dark, but somehow was not. The sentiment was appreciated, in any case: Roy knew how little he liked dealing with political bullshit, and kept him entirely out of it when he could.

“Yeah. He also told me that I wasn't allowed to go find the guy who wrote the stupid goddamn article until I came and talked to you.”

Roy laughed, strained, and for the first time looked over at Ed.

“Well, thank Alphonse for me. He's right. It wouldn't do for you to go attack this man. The papers would have a field day. It would be all across the country: Roy Mustang hires assassins to keep his secrets from getting out.”

Ed scowled. He had suspected that Roy would say something along those lines, but that didn't make it any less disappointing to hear.

“I'm not an assassin,” said Ed staring in the other direction. “I don't kill people.”

“Well, that I hire the most incompetent assassins in history, then,” said Roy. Out of the corners of his vision, Ed could see the edges of a soft smile, and that impossibly fond look that Roy sometimes favored him with. Ed blushed and shrunk down further.

“You give the weirdest compliments,” said Ed, even as he sprawled himself out so he was maybe just a teeny bit closer to the other man.

“I also like to stick to true compliments, so with you, it's natural that the two would go together.”

Roy moved his glass of scotch to the side table, then leaned forward to trace a finger down a strand of hair that had come loose from Ed's ponytail and become plastered to his neck. He spoke again, before Ed could say anything.

“I expected you to be on fire when you heard,” he said, drawing the finger around in little circles on Ed's neck. The blonde shivered at the faint sensation, riding the edge between uncomfortable and sensual.

“I was. I've just had a day of train rides and walking to cool me down. I'm too fuckin' tired to be mad right now. I will be again tomorrow. 'Sides, I figured that it was your turn to get to be all immature and upset, right? I've done enough of that,” he added with a lopsided grin. “But goddamn you, I come back and here you are, being all mature and shit, like always. You're always so fucking calm about everything.”

Apparently, Roy had some kind of unreasonable obsession with Ed's hair, because he kept on stroking the ponytail lightly, then bent in to kiss it where it spilled over Ed's shoulder.

“I'm going to take that as a compliment,” the general said, as he pulled away from the kiss. A pause: he looked Edward in the eyes. “So you don't have a problem with this?” he asked. “With what they said about you?”

“Of _course_ I have a fuckin _problem_ with it,” said Edward, crossing his arms with force. “They're liars and closed-minded bastards, and I'm still pissed off that nobody takes me seriously 'cause I'm young. I'm not even that young anymore, those fucking bastards. The military let me sign up for the death squad when I was twelve, they were perfectly happy to let me get fucked over back then, but now that I'm finally choosing who I fuck they freak the hell out? What kind of bullshit logic is that? And I just can't get over the fact that they're dragging you down over something that stupid anyway.”

Roy laughed and kissed him on the lips, which Ed thought was a bit of a weird response to what he had said.

“What I really meant when I asked that question, Edward,” said Roy, pressing his lips to the corner of his lover's mouth, “was, are you okay with being with me through all of this? Are you going to take off and disappear into the countryside without telling me? Are you going to leave me?”

Edward uncrossed his arms with just as much violent force and punched Roy in the arm, because he deserved it.

“Ow,” said Roy, faking injury.

“Don't be a dumbasss. Doesn't matter at all what other people think about us.” It didn't. Not at all. “'S long as you want me around, I'll be around. You and I are good. No problem there, unless you _keep_ being a dumbass about it, in which case the only problem is that you're being a dumbass. If you ask me something like that again I'll break your face.”

“But I thought you liked my face,” said Roy, feigning hurt again but doing it very poorly: a grin was spreading across said face, slow but bright as fire.

“I do like your face,” Ed conceded. “It's kinda pretty, and it's attached to a body that turns me on like you wouldn't believe.”

“Oh, I don't know, I might,” said Roy, sliding a hand across to his lover, onto Ed's knee, up to his crotch. “I'm something of an expert in the area.”

“Yeah?” Edward said, words beginning to sound choked. “And modesty ain't one of your virtues.”

“Well,” said Roy, “I know that I'm excellent at what I do.” His voice dropped all in an instant to a growl. “And what I love to do is to make you writhe and scream and beg for more.”

“You think you're that good, huh?” Edward said, licking his lips, as they had suddenly gone very dry. “Well, I don't believe anything without evidence. So prove it to me.”

Then, like an animal, Roy sprung: pinned to the couch by two strong hands, by a warm body, by the heavy press of Roy's erection to his own, it was all Ed could do to keep breathing. The general brought their mouths together, his tongue breaking through the barrier of Ed's lips to plunder his mouth. Ed kissed back in a fury, the passion washing down through him to pool in his gut. After a moment, the general pulled away, taking a deep breath.

“Is that it?” asked Edward, mouth twitching up into a smirk as soon as it was unoccupied, “Man, after all that big talk, I was expecting somethin' a little more spectacular than that.”

“Shut up, Fullmetal,” said Roy, pushing himself upward to let his eyes rake up and down Ed's body. “Stop pretending that I don't own you. I'll have you, and you'll love it.”

And then, suddenly, Roy's words stopped – the fire in his eyes went out, and Ed's breath came back. He rolled off of the younger man to sit on the edge of the couch and, propping his elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands. Edward sat up, frowning.

“Roy?” he asked, because his his role seemed no longer appropriate for this moment. “What's wrong?”

“I can't do this right now,” the older man said, quiet, tired. “I thought it would make me feel better, help me calm down and get rid of some of this tension, but I can't do it. I just feel guilty.”

Ed stared at his lover, confusion marking his face.

“Um, about what, exactly?” The press of arousal low in his gut put a hitch in his normal though processes.

“I don't know. It's stupid. It's just that, even if those accusations are lies, they hit a little bit close to home. You were so innocent and virginal before I got to you. I actually and literally ordered you into our first sexual situation. I can't help but feel like I may have been taking advantage of your sexual needs for my own benefit.”

The confusion gave way to anger in moments, partly at Roy for saying something like that, but mostly at the man who had written the motherfucking bunch of lies that had stained the front of that goddamn newspaper that morning. Ed's fist met Roy's shoulder for the second time that evening – but harder this time, with feeling. He tried to take deep breaths, to keep his cool like Roy would have if their positions had been flipped, but fuck it: he was very different from the General, because even though maybe he should stay calm, he really didn't want to, so he spat:

“Don't you _dare_ belittle my choice in being here, _General._ ” He almost hissed the last word. On his feet in a second, hands balled up by his sides, Ed used the sudden difference in their heights to bear down on the older man. “That's what those bastards at the newspapers are doing – you're all acting like I didn't have a choice, like I'm some kind of toy that you toss around when you wanna, or a kicked puppy that follows you everywhere 'cause it doesn't know any better. Well, breaking news for you: I'm not a _pet,_ I'm not a _kid,_ I've been making my own decisions and taking care of myself since I was ten. You were the one who showed me that our play isn't something you do _to_ me, it's something we do _together_ – so if you know what's fucking good for you you'll stop acting like I'm some sort of mindless idiot who isn't smart or strong enough to decide what I want to do and what I don't want to do. Respect me enough to let me make my own goddamn choices.”

Ed took a deep breath and closed his eyes to the look of shock and pain that crossed Roy's face. Then, he opened them again, put out a hand to rest on the man's shoulder, and said:

“But it's okay if you can't get into it tonight. That's not what I'm mad about.” Another deep breath, and the lines on his lover's face lightened some, though they didn't go away. “You've had a really bad day, and even though it sucks that you can't get rid of your stress the way you like best, there are lots of other ways, too.”

Ed sat down again, right beside the man, and pressed a kiss to the back of Roy's shoulder through the linen of his button-down shirt, still crisp and clean even after his long day. Roy looked back at him in surprise: Ed wasn't given to displaying affection in such a way. With the exception of when they were fucking or generally in some sort of sexual situation together, Ed was far more likely to hit his lover than to kiss him, to curse at him rather than compliment him, but today... Ed knew he was at least in part responsible for everything bad that had happened that day, and if it ended up derailing Roy's career, he wasn't sure if he would forgive himself. The least he could do, right in that moment, was provide a brief comfort to the man. No one else was going to. No one else could.

The remnants of Roy's mask sank for just that moment below a sudden wash of exhaustion, and Edward saw age creep up over the older man as a sickness, painting his skin sallow and his eyes shadowed. He tried out a smile, and Ed hurt.

“Listen, just – let me get dinner tonight,” Edward said, squeezing the other man's shoulder. “Sit right there and keep reading, or do whatever it is you do when I'm not around. Build card houses. Organize your kitchen. Listen to music. Learn interpretive dance, whatever.” Roy smiled again, more genuinely this time, the shadows in his furrowed brow lightening. “But I'll come back with pasta or something, and we'll talk about my research and your notes and nothing at all that has anything to do with this, 'kay? Sound like a plan?”

A fond look grew across Roy's face as he reached a hand up to squeeze Ed's hand where it was still resting on his shoulder. The exhaustion began to drain away from his face and shoulders, and he sat up straighter again. Ed's cheeks tinted pink, and he looked away, suddenly really realizing that he had been caught out in that moment of affection, and Roy wasn't about to forget it.

“Thank you, Edward,” he said, and Ed didn't look back to him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, cheeks reddening further, feeling somehow unreasonably pleased with himself. “Well, enjoy it, 'cause I'm not gonna go making a habit out of it, you got me?”

If Roy would keep looking at him like that, he'd make a habit out of just about anything.

“Perfectly,” said Roy, fondly, like he didn't believe the younger man at all. Dammit, Ed had the worst luck: he already had a psychic little brother and then he got a psychic lover, too. “But regardless, thank you.”

“Whatever,” said Edward, and turned for the door.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> So, I had to write this, because pretty much every fic in the whole damn fandom insinuates that this could happen, but to the best of my knowledge nobody's ever done it in detail, at least not in a fic good enough that it gets on rec lists (which is where I find pretty much all of my fic.) I also felt like, after Ed dealt with his own reactions and the reactions of the people closest to him, the next logical step story-wise would be for Roy and Ed to have to deal with the reactions of the rest of the world.
> 
> That, and my Roy and Ed pretty much just have an exhibitionist fetish, which can get you in a lot of trouble XP
> 
> I hope you'll continue to indulge me by reading. If you liked it, let me know! Your kind words are the fuel in my engine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had hoped to start getting this out weekly. Maybe next time. Still, a week and a half is better than two weeks, no?

**Chapter 4**

*

For all of his earlier shock and fury, the whole situation didn't really hit home until that night. His trip to the restaurant and retrieval of food occurred without incident: he let himself think of other things, of his research and transmutation circles and just why the plants in Group F of this leg of his experiments seemed to be growing in random shapes, seemingly unregulated by biology or logic. It was frankly irritating to find out that a particular hypothesis was wrong.

His silent musings on science and horticulture were interrupted when, coming back down the road with a paper bag full of food in his hand, he noticed something moving in the bushes in front of Roy's house. Suspicious, a cold dread growing in his stomach, he increased his pace, stepping lightly and silently as he could.

Peering over the short, wooden fence, he saw a thing that made his blood run hot: a man in a fedora hat, kneeling down behind Roy's hedge, pulling back branches with one arm to give the camera he held in his other a clear shot at Roy's front door.

For a moment, he couldn't do much more than just stand there bewildered – this was so far out of his realm of experience and expectation that he took a few moments to even comprehend what he was seeing. His primal instincts clicked into gear before his brain did.

He put one hand on the fence and vaulted over it to land a few short feet behind the other man. Apparently the man was so engrossed in what he was doing that he had lost his hearing, because he didn't seem to notice Edward's arrival.

“What the hell,” he began, voice low and utterly dangerous, “do you think you're doing?”

The man spun around and to his feet, guilt spreading across his face: but then, his eyes lit on Edward, and a rush of delight infused the guilt immediately. 

“Are you the Fullmetal Alchemist?” he asked, entirely too eagerly.

“That's none of your goddamn business,” Edward said, the growl growing in volume. “What the _hell_ are you doing on Roy's lawn?”

The man's eyes became uneasy, and they flickered back and forth between the camera and the snarl on Ed's face.

“Um, I'm documenting the life of one of Amestris's most important figures,” the man said.

“ _Documenting?_ ” said Edward, with an incredulous laugh, his teeth bared. “What you're doing is fucking _trespassing_ and violating privacy laws so you can try to smear shit all over Roy's name, just 'cause you find it kinda fun.”

The man seemed to have an answer prepared for this one, although he took a step back as Edward took a step forward.

“Reporting on the private lives of Amestrian public figures and celebrities is legal under section 8 of –”

“I don't give a flying fuck what you think you're quoting, the law _never_ says that you can _sneak onto private property_ to take photos of somebody _without their permission,_ and it never says that you can fucking _lie_ about them and expect it to be covered under 'freedom of the press' or what-the-fuck-ever.”

The little smirk the man gave him only fanned the flames.

“Mr. Elric, I only intend to present the truth. Photographs don't lie,” he said, in such a smarmy voice that Ed began to find restraining himself from violent battery extremely challenging.

“Like hell you do, and like hell they don't! Did you get any fun shots? Huh?” Ed sneered, balling his hands into fists. “Anything you could put in your paper next to an article telling people what a fucking pervert he is?” 

“So you admit that he's a pervert?” the man asked, brightening up considerably. “If you could give me any details on –”

Real rage bubbled in him then, bursting through his determined calm: he dropped his bag and lunged forward, grabbing the man by the collar and pushing him back against the hedges hard enough that sharp branches scratched at them both. Sweat began to bead on the man's forehead, his upper lip: to a stupid fucking nobody like this man, Ed knew he must look terrifying, painted in the hard, angry shadows cast by the long light of the streetlamps. 

“Stop twisting my words!” he snarled, fisting the shirt harder between his fingers, tightening the collar until it was nearly choking the man. “You and everybody in your whole damn job can go fuck themselves. I'm not saying a word to you except _fuck the hell off,_ and you can quote me on that.” 

With the backs of his legs pressed up against the bush and his face flushing red from lack of oxygen, the man looked so scared and pathetic that a sudden disgust replaced Ed's rage. He shoved the man back so he fell ungracefully onto the hedge, then took a few steps back to put some distance between the two of them. Unable to do anything else, he planted his feet and crossed his arms.

“The only reason – the _only_ reason – I didn't kick your ass just now is because Mustang asked me not to. So I hope you know how goddamn lucky you are, and keep telling yourself that.” He paused, took a deep breath, and locked hard eyes on the other's. 

“Now, get the fuck off of his property before I decide that the admission fee is a broken nose and a fancy-ass camera, you got me?”

The whimpering sort of noise the man made as he picked himself up out of the greenery and got to his feet was more satisfying than it ought to have been.

“You're going to regret threatening me,” he said, shakily, as he began his retreat, giving Edward a few feet of berth as he went.

“Am I?” said Edward, sharply. “Seems to me like it's prob'ly gonna be the best part of my day.”

The man, apparently having no idea what else to do, turned tail and fled. Leaning on the short fence so he could stretch over and keep watching the man, Ed waited until he had disappeared around the corner at the far end of the street before picking up his bag from where he had dropped it and turning to the door.

With a clap of his hands, he transmuted the lock open, only to find Roy standing barely two feet on the other side of the opening door.

“Oh. Hey,” said Edward, masking his surprise. He brought the bag of take-out up and practically shoved it in Roy's chest. “I brought food.”

“I thought I heard raised voices outside,” Roy said, frowning. “Is everything alright?”

“Raised voices?” said Edward, innocently. “I dunno, I didn't hear anything. Maybe some cats got in a fight. Is pasta with meat sauce cool?” He shut the door, which Roy took as his cue to turn around and walk back into the living room again, then through into the kitchen. “I got that angel hair shit you like so much, and garlic bread, too. Everything cool here?”

Roy looked suspicious.

“I'm certain I heard you. Your voice isn't the kind that one confuses with others.”

Ah, damn. It would have been nice if Roy didn't have to know about this at all.

“I guess it isn't. But don't worry about it. I took care of it,” he said, setting the bag down on the kitchen table and tearing it down the side so he didn't have to bother trying to maneuver the food boxes out of it. He took one box out and set it in the place in front of him, and set another on the place-mat in Roy's usual spot..

“Took care of what?” Mustang asked, an eyebrow raised. “And don't eat out of the box like a barbarian,” he added, as Ed opened the box and sat down. “We're perfectly capable of eating off of plates, like civilized human beings, even if we're getting take-out.”

“I just don't see the point in getting' a plate dirty when there's nothin wrong with the box. It just makes cleanup easier. Put the boxes in the trash, rinse off your forks, an' then you're done.”

At least Roy seemed to find that amusing.

“I guess that it won't hurt anything for one night,” the man said, going over to his silverware drawer and pulling out a set of forks. He turned back to Edward, sat down in the seat, then fixed the younger man in an intense stare. “But you never answered my question. Took care of what?”

Dammit, he should have known that Roy wouldn't be thrown off so easily. He opened the box with the garlic bread in it and tore off the lid, so they could both access it and it didn't annoy him by flopping shut randomly, as take-out box lids tended to do. The lasagna waiting in his own box assaulted his nose with its rich aroma, and Ed knew from experience that it tasted as good as it smelled.

“Nothin' major,” he said, as he took the fork from Roy and carved off his first piece of the delicious creation. Quite unable to wait any longer, he shoved it in his mouth, then continued, speaking around his food. “I just found a reporter sneaking around in your shrubs with a camera and told him to get the fuck off your property. Nothin I couldn't handle.”

Mustang's already raised eyebrow arched further.

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” Roy admonished, more intensely than he had probably intended. “And... how exactly did you handle this issue?”

Ed didn't stop chewing, but replied:

“Like I said, I told him to get the fuck off your property. I didn't break any bits of him, if that's what you were wonderin'. Or his camera, either,” Edward said, swallowing, then shoving another bite in his mouth. “Seriously. Cut me some slack. You told me not to go doin' anything stupid, and I'm not gonna.”

The smile Roy gave him then made his restraint entirely worth it, though it didn't dispel the weight that had settled in the place where his emotions usually went.

“Is that so?” the man asked, taking the torn paper bag and setting it on the floor next to them, so it didn't get in the way of their conversation. “Well, thank you, Edward. You handled that with remarkable maturity,” he said, then picked up his fork and began to spin his pasta onto it. 

“Hey, you sayin' I'm not mature usually?” Ed shot back, around the lasagna in his cheek. “I'm twice as fuckin' mature as you are, you bastard.”

“Indeed,” said Roy, amused. “Yes, you astound me every day with both your ability to take care of yourself and your table manners.”

“Hey, I can fucking take care of myself! I've been doin' it since I was ten.” He ripped off a hunk of garlic bread and shoved it in his mouth.

“Really. I've never heard tell of you doing your own laundry.”

Edward flushed. So his brother did most of the household chores, big deal. He liked that sort of shit. So Ed didn't really know how to do most of it. So what? That was what he had Al for.

“That's got nothin' to do with anything.”

“Of course it doesn't,” Roy replied, with a little smile. Ed had just started to steel himself for another round of taunting when the man said: “In any case, I appreciate what you've done for me – I can imagine that restraining yourself in that situation was difficult, you being who you are. The press can be rather irritating, but I would really rather not make the situation worse than it already is by giving them any more ammunition to use against me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Edward muttered, swirling his fork around in the extra sauce. “That's the only reason I didn't fuckin' do anything.”

For a moment, Mustang watched him carefully, then said:

“Are you alright, though? I can see how your encounter would be upsetting.”

Ed flashed his lover a wide grin that was almost genuine.

“What, me? Upset, over somethin' so stupid? Who the hell do you take me for?”

Roy smiled softly, distantly.

“Of course. How silly of me,” he said, and took another bite.

*

Alphonse recognized the look that his brother wore when he came home the next morning: over the course of many years, it had become sadly familiar. His expression, drawn tight across his tired face, was pained, jaded – it was a particular look, one he only wore when he was world-weary and sick of believing the best of people only to have them turn around and prove him wrong. 

If you had asked Ed, he would have told you that he had long ago stopped believing the best of people, but Al knew that deep within him, that last bit of idealism had yet to completely choke. That fragile, hidden piece of Edward was hurting. Sitting on their couch in his travel clothes, his hair in disarray, he looked a smaller person than he had been when he had left.

“Hey,” offered Al, leaning on the entrance to the kitchen, arms crossed.

“Hey,” replied Ed, trying out a smile for his little brother’s sake. It fell flat. “How’s it been?”

Ed could have been asking any number of things with those words. He would want to know how the media had been treating his little brother, how said little brother was holding up, how all of Roy's team was holding up, how the country was responding... Al answered the first one, which was the only one he knew the answer to.

“I haven’t had any trouble here. How’s General Mustang?”

“Holdin’ up. He’s got a plan, as always.” He moved to sit on the couch, and folded his hands in his lap.

“Yeah, as always,” Al said, strangely proud as he continued: “He actually has me doing investigations on this guy, you know.”

The smile Ed gave in response was genuine this time, though hardly free or easy.

“He said he had his best people on it. I thought he meant somebody actually _in_ investigations, but of course he meant you.”

The words triggered a smile in Alphonse. Edward's absolute, dogged faith in him meant more than a million words of praise from anyone else. 

“Well, I’m under the direction of one of the investigations guys, so it’s not just me. But still.”

“He couldn't teach you anything you couldn't figure out all on your own. I’m proud of you,” he said, leaning over to give his little brother's head to give his hair a ruffle. Al wrinkled his nose and pulled away, but didn't really mind. The couch creaked as Edward leaned back again, throwing an arm over the back in an attempt to look casual.

He wondered if he should make tea – but no, Edward had never liked tea much. It had never seemed to help him in the way it helped Al. And yet, the way he was sitting, crumpled against the arm of the couch, made Al want to do something for him. Long years of being trapped inside of a suit of armor had made him unused to physical contact: it never occurred to him to cross the distance and give his brother a hug.

“So, how are you holding up?” Al asked, watching his brother closely. “This must be hard for you, too. They said some awfully nasty things about you.”

Ed shrugged.

“Eh, I’m okay. I don’t let the shit other people spout bother me too much.”

“Brother…” Al said, giving the other a look. There was no point in Ed trying to hide anything from him. The lie was plain on every line of his face.

“What?” said Edward, looking a bit embarrassed, then pressing his lips together. “Really, I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you.” 

“Well, fuckin believe me, ‘cause I mean it,” Ed snapped. Some life started coming back into his face as he continued. “'m not upset or whatever. I'm just mad that those newspaper fuckers'd say something like that about Roy. He’s the best thing that ever happened to this country, and he’s gonna make the best damn Fuhrer in history, too.” His face twisted into some expression halfway between a scowl and a look of pain. “The article’s almost just worse ‘cause half of it’s _true,_ but it’s not anybody’s goddamn business what Roy and I do in bed.” Then, quieter, mumbled: “Dunno why they’ve got such a problem with it anyway.” 

Even though Ed had, over time, gotten over most of his issues with regards to his and General Mustang’s activities, Al knew that guilt and shame died hard in his brother's head. Al frowned.

“You know that this isn’t your fault, Brother.”

“I know, Al.”

“You're lying to me again,” Al said, absolutely confident in his diagnosis.

“What? No I'm not! Why would I lie?” Ed said, feigning a very nearly convincing surprise.

“To keep me from worrying about you, of course,” he said, smiling. “But it won't do you any good. I’m going to worry about you for the rest of your life whether you want me to or not, so you might as well just talk to me.”

The sinking of Edward's shoulders was not at all Al's intended result.

“It's not your problem, Al,” he said, voice little more than a murmur.

Something cracked inside of Alphonse then, letting all kinds of inconvenient emotions out.

“Why do you always _say_ things like that?” Al asked, his voice raising in pitch as the emotions came out in his voice. “You always want to handle everything alone. Well, tough! You can't do everything by yourself! If it were _me_ in this situation, you'd be up night and day trying to figure out how to help! Why won't you let me do for you what you would do for me? You have to trust me.”

The look Edward gave him might have been hurt.

“I do trust you, Al. More than anyone.”

“You don't trust me enough to let me help you,” said Al, even though he knew that was a little bit manipulative, maybe just a bit... But it was for the greater good, he told himself.

“It's not that I don't trust you to take care of me, it's just that I don't want you to have to.”

“But I want to. You’re my brother. You’re more important to me than anyone else in the world.”

Ed snorted.

“Even more important than Winry?’

Al could feel himself start to blush. He had kissed her for the first time not long ago, and she seemed to have liked it as much as he had. Thinking about it still gave him little fluttery feelings in his stomach.

“You would never make me choose,” said Al, with confidence. “Just like I would never make you choose between me and General Mustang. In any case, that’s not the point. The point is that we're brothers, and we take care of _each other._ It doesn't just go one way. You should talk to me – it helps, I promise, and I know when you’re lying to me. I have selective telepathy.”

He tapped his forehead to emphasize the point. Ed smiled and tugged some hair back into place.

“Are you worried?” Al prompted, after a silence.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Edward, words slow and thoughtful. “I dunno what’s gonna happen, and no matter what you say, I know it’s still my fault that Roy’s in such deep shit.”

Al shook his head, forceful.

“If somebody was following him around with a camera, like they seem to have been, they would have found out about the General’s interests anyway, whether he was going about it with you or not.”

This was true enough, for what it was.

“Yeah, but if it wasn't with me, they wouldn't have made him out to be some kind of – some kind of pedo freak. He’s a freak, sure – but not the pedo kind,” Ed added with a laugh that sounded almost a bit distressed. 

“I know,” said Al, soothingly. “But you know, it will all come clear in the end. It will. General Mustang's whole team is putting everything that they possibly can into clearing his name, and so am I. If we work hard enough, we'll get what we want. That's equivalent. I promise that everything will be fine.”

For a moment, Edward's troubled frown deepened – but after a beat, two, he smiled.

“I guess it's a good thing that at least one of us is an optimist.”

“Well, somebody has to be your voice of reason. You can be so cynical sometimes, Brother.”

Ed laughed, unhappily.

“Well, can ya blame me? I dunno how you've managed to stay so upbeat all these years If there's a god, then he's an asshole. He just likes kicking us when we're down – or when we're up, whatever. Guess the bastard thinks it's funny. Doesn't that get you frustrated?”

Half hunched over on the couch, one arm slung over a raised knee, Ed looked so tense that Al had to do something for him.

He stood and walked around to stand behind the couch: Ed's head twisted to follow him, his expression furrowed in confusion. Gently, Al turned his brother's head back to the front, then put his hands on the other's shoulders and squeezed the hard muscle there, held it for a moment, then released it. Ed gave a long sigh as Al relaxed his grip.

“No, it doesn't frustrate me,” said Al, squeezing the muscle again, then beginning to knead gently. He was rewarded with a pleased noise from his brother. “It doesn't frustrate me at all. Life is full of challenges, Brother, and challenges give us a chance to show our stuff. If we have harder ones than a lot of people – well, it just means that when we overcome them, we get twice as much in return.”

Ed made another pleased hum as Al's thumbs dug into the base of his neck, first breaking up the tension with intense pressure, then soothing the area. 

“This is why I keep you around, Al,” he said, beginning to relax into his brother's touch. “Sometimes I guess I need a kick in the ass to get walking again. That, and apparently you give great shoulder massages,” he said, letting himself hang forward so Al could have better access, then made another pleased hum. “I officially regret the fact that you never did this when we were hunting for the Stone.”

“You seemed like you needed one,” Al replied, smiling, suddenly glad that Winry had insisted he learn the art of the shoulder rub. He wondered if someday, she might let him give her a full-body massage, or might give him one herself... He doused those thoughts before they could get even more interesting, and pulled himself back to the conversation at hand. More quietly, he said: “But I know that you would get up on your own, even without me. You're too stubborn just to lie there and take it. Really, it just makes you twice as determined to prove you can do it anyway.” Ed laughed.

“Hey, life kicks me, I kick back, it's equivalent exchange, and everybody's happy.”

“Especially since you got the last word,” Al said, with some amusement, working inward to Ed's neck and the base of his skull. “Or the last kick in this case, I guess.”

“Well, that helps too. Seriously, Al. Sometimes I wonder just how other people get by without little brothers to keep them sane.”

“I imagine they manage somehow,” said Al, more touched than he would say.

*

The headlines the next day were explosive, full of exaggerations and exclamation points.

_GENERAL MUSTANG CAUGHT ABUSING MALE LOVER!_

_EXPOSED: THE SECRET LIFE OF GENERAL ROY MUSTANG!_

_DR WATERS: HOMOSEXUALS CLINICALLY INSANE, DANGERS TO THEMSELVES_

_“Both of them should be locked up for crimes against decency.”_

_“'The homosexual affliction is not a crime, but a disease to be cured,' says popular psychiatrist Dr. Waters.”_

_“Mustang should not just be court-martialed, but prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the rape of a minor and for domestic abuse.”_

_“'We have been lobbying for anti-perversion laws to be put into effect for years now,' says one community organizer representing the group called Amestrians for a Brighter Tomorrow. 'This scandal only goes to show that such laws are absolutely necessary. If we locked up homosexuals and other sexual deviants before they committed these kinds of offenses rather than after, then young boys would be safe from this kind of assault.'”_

Alphonse must have been a masochist himself, to go out before dawn and collect a copy of all of the papers published in Central City to peruse every messed-up, painful article. If he was going to investigate the case, he would need to keep up with all the news, no matter how sick it made him.

He read them, then burned them all in the fireplace before his brother woke up.

“Good morning, Brother,” he said, when Ed staggered down the stairs in only his boxer shorts, yawning, his hair a fuzzy mess: he had apparently forgotten to take it out of its braid the night before. “I've made pancakes. With chocolate chips,” he added, just in case they didn't sound appealing enough already.

Ed's expression went from half-asleep to lit up like a fire in a fraction of a second, and he was down the stairs as fast as Al could blink. His eyes fell on the stack of pancakes next to Al, and he grinned, bright and unimpeded. Warming at the sight, Al did his best to memorize the expression: he had a feeling that it might be a while before he saw his brother smile like that again.

*

The musty parchment-and-leather scent of old books was strongest back in the archives, where there was scarcely ever a visitor to disturb its rule: it enveloped Al like a security blanket, well-worn and familiar. The first time he had entered a library after getting his body back, the smell had actually brought tears rushing to his eyes: Edward had gotten this frantic look on his face, had started asking if Al was okay, if he needed a doctor, if he needed to sit down – 

Al had laughed, then, out of sheer happiness: his brother's concern was touching, but not necessary. Of _course_ he was okay. Few things in his life had felt more right than his first time navigating the labyrinthine collections of one of Central's most revered institutions on his own two feet.

Never again would he take even something like the smell of books for granted: but these days, the scent was more a comfort than a revelation, and it supported him as he pored through the Central Times archive. This paper declared the date to be July 18, 1915 – three years past, now. Interestingly, but not terribly importantly, Guy Harriet seemed to have written an article on Edward's exploits in the northern town of Anvale, where he had rid the nearby woods of a pack of escaped chimeras and tossed the alchemist who had created them in jail, to await trial for at criminal neglect at the very least and manslaughter at the worst. She had tried to hide her tracks, Al remembered, and had refused to own up to her mistake, which had made his brother terrifyingly angry.

At the point when he had written this piece, at least, Harriet had seemed to have some respect for Edward. Then again, it was never Edward that Harriet had seemed to blame for his and Mustang's relationship in his horrible article. It was always General Mustang. That was interesting to note.

Al sighed and put down the paper, folding it up again and putting it back in the archival folder he had taken it from, then moved on to the next one. Beside him, Myamar, the library cat, twitched in her sleep and curled up tighter on top of the stack of newspapers the alchemist had already examined. He gave her an absent scratch on the head, and she buried her nose further under her paw.

He shook the paper out, then scanned it for a moment – after a moment, his eyes lit on one headline in particular.

_B. GEN. TORRIMAN CAUGHT IN TRYST WITH SISTER?_

The photograph on the front of the paper showed a man – Brigadier General Torriman, presumably – with his arms around a woman, probably his sister, bending in for what looked like a kiss – though with the angle of the shot making their exact position unclear, he could have been aiming for her lips, or her cheek, or just leaning over to whisper something in her ear.

He continued on with the article:

_Brigadier General Torriman has been advised to remain away from the media spotlight after allegations arose suggesting that he had carnal relations with his sister. News emerged over the weekend stating that Miss Torriman – allegedly a virgin – had been to see a doctor for issues of a feminine variety._

The article continued on in much that same vein for about ten paragraphs, though Al's favorite line by far was: _The Brigadier General refused to answer reporters' questions as to when he began his sordid relationship with his sister,_ because it expertly implied that General Torriman was avoiding media questioning for reasons of self-protection. Al thought it rather more likely that the man had simply said “No comment” to all questions posed by the media – but that hardly made good storytelling!

The byline, surely enough, credited Guy Harriet with the article.

Carefully, Alphonse transcribed the entire article into his notebook, finished scanning that day's paper, then put it back. The next day's newspaper had even more sensational news: _TORRIMAN'S SISTER PREGNANT WITH BROTHER'S BABY?_ And the day after, _MISS TORRIMAN'S CHILDHOOD DOCTOR: SHE WAS 'NEVER QUITE RIGHT IN THE HEAD.'_ Then, another: _INSIDE THE SECRET LIFE OF FAMOUS LABOR REFORMER TORRIMAN!_

The last article title hit a bit close to home. An article with a disturbingly similar title now lay as ash in his fireplace.

Al copied those articles as well, faithfully, with a strange mixture of pride and guilt at his own pleasure. But the scandal in question had been over for many years, now, and what was done was done.

A year and a few months worth of newspapers later, Al found another article by Harriet: this time, one Colonel Grimmler had apparently been discovered to have Drachman heritage, which of course meant that he must have been spying for Drachma, because that's how logic goes.

Six months down the shelf, Al found another one, accusing another colonel of collaborating with Ishballan terrorists.

Although the particulars were different, in each case the allegations were swift, damning, vague, and hard to prove – or disprove. In most of them, the accused seemed to have disappeared conveniently without an opportunity for a trial, although in the case of the man accused of having a Drachman ancestor, Colonel Grimmler happened to have had what seemed like an Armstrong-like obsession with his family heritage. He had presented the newspapers with a family tree going back three hundred years, each branch provable through public record, and which showed no signs of Drachman affiliations of any kind.

In other words, in the one case where evidence had actually been evaluated, Harriet's accusations had been proved to be absolutely, undeniably false. Had Colonel Grimmler ever charged Harriet with slander? The newspapers didn't mention it: if he had, the accusations seemed to have come to nothing, or else the media had found it to not be in their interests to cover such a thing. Alphonse wondered briefly what he would have to do to gain access to the court records for April of 1917. 

The cat opened one eye at Al as he stretched, then stood and began to collect all of the orderly stacks of papers that lay stacked around him. She stretched and got to her feet also, then mewed at him adorably.

“Sorry, kitty,” Al said, giving her a scratch behind the ears that she proceeded to press her head into, eyes squeezed shut in bliss. “I have to go now. But I'll be back soon, okay? I promise.”

She gave a disappointed mew as he lifted her from the stack of newspapers on which she had been sleeping and set her on the floor, then re-shelved the pieces of her bed where they belonged. He put his notebook in his bag and slung it over his shoulder, then sped out of the archive room and through the library. He gave a hurried word of thanks to one of the librarians before leaving the building and taking off at a trot towards Central Headquarters. 

He liked this investigation stuff, he decided, pulling a red apple out of his bag and biting into it. It was almost like science, except with people, which just made it more unpredictable.

*

The first time Roy and Weimar saw each other after the publication of the article, it was in a hallway too small and too empty for them to ignore one another, and no good way to ignore the impending confrontation. He saw the older general coming about fifty feet ahead, and they pretended that the walk to where they met wasn't incredibly tense and awkward, that they weren't watching each other out of the corners of their eyes even as they looked elsewhere. Weimar's eyes glittered hard, like glass, as Roy approached.

They stopped about three feet apart, after about thirty seconds of walking towards each other in painful silence.

“A good morning to you, General Mustang,” Weimar began, smiling pleasantly, which set the tone for the whole encounter.

“Good morning, General Weimar,” said Roy, standing to attention, remembering just in time that he no longer had to salute the man. “I hope you're well,” he finished, having nothing else in particular to say, but unable to leave without being rude. Watching the other man carefully, Roy's intuition tugged at him, told him something was wrong: a suspicion sprouted unannounced, like a weed, in the back of his mind.

“Yes, I'm doing quite well,” said the man, lacing his hands together behind him. “But I was wondering about you, General Mustang. I saw the papers yesterday morning, and this morning as well. Nasty things. I'm sorry you had to go through all of this.” There was little sympathy in his voice.

“That's quite alright,” Roy said with a smile, replying to his words rather than his tone. They both stepped to the side to get out of the way of a lieutenant passing down the hallway, hauling a box of files half as big as he was. “The media is not a tame animal, after all, and I can't control what they say. They are invaluable mouthpieces of the nation, but they are also quite sensational. The newspapers will print anything that they think people will read. But my team is working on getting the truth out there. It will all come clear eventually, I'm certain.”

General Weimar's eyes focused on him entirely too intensely in that moment. A cold washed over Roy, his suspicion taking hold.

“Perhaps,” the man said, straightening himself out fully. “Maybe you would do me the favor of telling me what 'the truth' is, to begin with. How much of what they're saying is correct? Is this the reason you don't have a wife – because you've been keeping Fullmetal as your secret lover?”

The hallway chilled around them as Roy spoke, his hard, unwavering gaze matching the other general's.

“I don't see what business my relationships are of yours,” he said, each word emphasized, each blow delivered slowly for maximum impact.

If Weimar had been affected by the pointed intensity of his reply, he did not allow Roy to see it – but that meant nothing at all in the end. The man was a politician, after all, and adept at keeping his thoughts hidden.

“Oh, no business of mine, none at all,” the man said, as if their conversation were still casual. “You are, of course, free not to answer. I just ask to satisfy my own curiosity. I find it incredible and impressive that you have managed to be so popular among the people without a wife. The public always seems to prefer family men in its positions of power. And you have been under such scrutiny lately: I wonder how you managed to keep your young lover a secret.”

This conversation was going nowhere good. The suspicion grew from sprout to blossom in his mind, taking it over.

Most likely, Weimar was behind the articles, he realized, with a mix of dread and hot fury. If he wasn't, then he was at least sympathetic to the person who was: Roy was sure of that now. In any case, Weimar's interest in the affair was more than just casual. And the man certainly seemed to have a lot to gain if Roy were to fall from power...

“I have hardly been keeping my relationship with Edward a secret. If anyone had asked before now, I would have answered them honestly. I was simply not advertising our relationship, because my private life is and should remain private, and because I thought that there might be a bit of a commotion about it. I was not wrong about that,” Roy said, with hard eyes and knives in the smile that never left his face.

“Of course you would have been honest, you are an honest man,” said General Weimar, stroking his beard. “But it would have been understandable if you hadn't been. Your relationship is quite the liability, after all, isn't it?”

“It wouldn't have been,” Roy returned, icily, “if the journalist who wrote the article hadn't made up half of the things he printed in that paper.”

Weimar looked at him with eyebrows raised, as if he were surprised by Roy's answer.

“Oh? Are you denying the allegations, then?”

“Not all of them. But I've done nothing wrong or illegal, and I'm denying any allegations that say I have.”

“Really? That's excellent. It's good to know that the Hero of Ishbal always stays well within the boundaries of law.”

Roy took a deep breath, and smiled, though his attempt to be pleasant had a sharp edge.

“The most illegal thing I've done in my life is breaking the speed limit, which I confess to having done on a number of occasions. This is more than can be said for the majority of military officers, as I'm sure you well know.”

Technically, killing Fuhrer Bradley hadn't been illegal, because no-one had ever bothered to make a law saying that it was: such things were just understood to be in bad form. Plotting to dethrone the man, however, was technically illegal, although he wasn't about to confess to such a thing.

Weimar laughed, though the attempt at mirth didn't fool Roy.

“This is true. Well, I wish you the best of luck, Mustang,” he said. “The media is a difficult animal to stand against. The moment you think you have a handle on it, it changes entirely, and you have in your hands a totally different beast than you thought you did.”

“Your advice is welcome, General Weimar, and I appreciate your support. I'm certain that this circus will die down shortly, and then we can all focus on the real issues.”

Weimar made some meaningless noise of agreement as he walked away, then some kind of farewell, which Roy matched. For a moment, just before the man's face turned from view, he caught glimpse of a dark expression, intense. If this man was behind the scandal – and he was, the knowledge burned in Mustang's gut – then he knew with a sudden clarity that the issue wouldn't just blow over when the journalist was discredited or the public lost interest, as he had hoped. This was going to be a battle, played out through the newspapers and radios and public spaces, but never face-to-face.

This was going to be a long road, and he could only hope that he was ready for it.

*

As soon as the tap of Mustang's footsteps had faded to nothing behind him, General Weimar finally allowed himself to sink against the wall, putting his weight on it instead of on his long-abused automail port. He ran hands over his hip, massaging the muscles there, trying to make them relax, to ease the pain in them, but to little avail. In his pocket, he had a tube of soothing cream that Meredith put there every morning, but he rarely found time to use it.

Talking to Mustang had been a bad idea – this, he knew with a tired, painful certainty. Whatever else Mustang may have been, he was also clever, and Weimar knew that his words had founded a suspicion in the other man. Even though he had little fear that the other general could actually do anything to him, he still never should have let himself be put in a situation where the man would even be able to suspect him.

But seeing Mustang striding down that hallway, looking all presentable and put-together and imperious, had been a temptation too great for Mikhael to resist.

Because, after everything he had put into this, he wanted to see the man hurt, to see him tired and confused, to see even _one goddamn hair_ out of place.

Mustang's face, his voice, his smirk, everything _about_ him made Weimar lose his restraint, made inconvenient emotions bubble out of him in ways that he couldn't hold back, that he couldn't even recognize until after the moment had passed.

He shouldn't have let himself speak to the man, shouldn't have allowed the conversation to continue, but he had, and he hoped that his mistake would be trivial, temporary. Now alone, with no battles to fight or expectations to bear, exhaustion drained into him, filled him to the brim until all he could think of, all he wanted, was a hot bath – that, and maybe Meredith's hands on his shoulders, pressing out all of the tension in his muscles with expert strokes.

He loved her more than anything. If only all of – _this_ didn't keep getting in the way.

Pulling himself up off of the wall, he steadied himself with one hand, and marched on.

*

“Check General Weimar's finances. Check his personal history. Find out anything you can about him,” Roy told Hawkeye, slamming her door behind him as he stalked into her office. “I want to know his dog's name. I want to know who his dentist is. I want to know who his wife went to tea with last Thursday morning. I want to know anything and everything about him.”

Hawkeye frowned at him, her eyes piercing and concerned.

“Sir?”

“Look at Harriet too, of course,” said Roy, dismissively. “It would be convenient if we could find some way to discredit him. But we were investigating Harriet mostly in hopes that we could find out whether he had a puppeteer within the military – my gut tells me that he does, and that I already know who he his. Investigate Mikhael Weimar well enough and we'll find proof of a connection between the two, I promise you this.”

After a moment of thought, Riza nodded in reply. She didn't even ask him for evidence, or for explanation. She trusted him that much. Sometimes, he wondered if he deserved it.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and he nodded back, then spun on his heel and strode out of her office.

*

The spotlight had always suited Mikhael Weimar: standing in front of the rest of the senior staff in the hearing room, with Fuhrer Hakuro's eyes on him, the other generals and cabinet members examining him just as intently, he was in his element. His audience watched him from a line of seats, each taller than the last, culminating in the Fuhrer's chair in the center, above all of the others. Someday, that chair would be his. At that moment two seats were empty: his own, and one other. Mustang had not been invited to this particular hearing.

“Surely, all of you have seen the media fiasco that has erupted surrounding the newest member of our staff, the newly promoted General Roy Mustang.” He could hardly conceal his bitterness as he spat those last words.

“Yes, but you're clearly seeing something that I'm not, if you've bothered calling us here,” said General Grumman, chin propped up on folded hands, eyes glinting. “So for the sake of those of us who aren't as well informed as you, explain yourself.”

Grumman was not going to be his ally in this fight, Weimar could tell right away. There seemed to be something of a friendship between him and Mustang, which was a bit inconvenient, he would admit. In the end, it hardly mattered, though: Grumman was old and powerful, but if Weimar could gain the sympathy of a majority of the senior staff, he could easily outweigh Grumman's vote. He directed his speech to the Fuhrer and to the other men of the cabinet. Many of them, he knew, were firmly in his camp on this issue, or at least undecided. Homosexuality made many military men understandably nervous, and Mustang's promiscuity was legendary: the combination of the two made the Flame Alchemist a threat in more than a few ways.

“Well, I'm sure every one of you has noticed by now that the newspapers have brought to light evidence that Mustang has been engaging in perverted and homosexual acts. Allegations against him also include rape of a minor and fraternization with a subordinate.” 

“Allegations without any firm foundation,” said Hakuro, neutrally. Weimar couldn't tell what he was thinking. “The articles seem to have provided many implications and little proof.”

Proof, yes – proof was difficult to come by, so many years after the original offense. If any of the alchemist's staff knew anything, they certainly weren't talking about it, no matter what his investigators had done to try to loosen their lips. But now that the topic was out in the open for public discussion, he had complete faith that people who had more information on the subject and more flexible loyalties would begin to wriggle out of the woodwork. He had quietly been spreading the rumor that anyone who came out with information about Mustang or Fullmetal would be protected from any repercussions: but so far, all he had managed to gather was more proof that they had been having relations within the past several months, and he didn't need any more of that

“It is not the duty of the media to _prove_ an allegation,” Weimar countered. “Guilt or innocence – that is up to the courts to decide. The media merely brings it to light. And the issue has been brought to the public eye in a major way: have any of you been listening to the radio? Reading editorials? The public response to this scandal has been overwhelmingly negative. Do we want the military to be dirtied by association with such an embarrassment? In the face of such widespread outrage, do we want to be seen to be doing nothing?”

Fuhrer Hakuro's eyes narrowed. He seemed about to say something, but Grumman interrupted again.

“Do we want to be seen responding to every whim of a fickle public? Do we want to be at the beck and call of alarmists and pundits? We are above such things. We _are_ power, General, and bend to no-one. And more than that, do we want to risk alienating one of our best soldiers and generals? Should war break out against Creta or Aerugo, do you really want the Flame Alchemist behind bars?”

_Yes, more than anything._

If war did start, the coward would probably make it to the border and then refuse to fight for some moral reason, anyway. During the Ishballan Rebellion he had been a living weapon, certainly, but Mustang was a different man, now. Though he hid it behind the line of medals on his chest, it was clear to anyone with eyes to see that the revered Flame Alchemist had become a goddamn pacifist.

“I'm not saying we should jail him without question. He would only be jailed if he has committed a crime,” Weimar replied, easily, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Even the senior staff should be held accountable in a court of law for such abnormal, disgusting and disgraceful acts.”

There was some murmuring among the men in front of him. This was the most controversial thing he would say that day. Most of the men there were already in agreement with him that Mustang's perversions were disgusting, but they would take some more convincing to be certain that they were worth putting him on trial over – it would set an uncomfortable precedent, to say the very least. At this point, Weimar hardly even cared.

The simple fact that hung unspoken in the room was that the Flame Alchemist made all of them uncomfortable for a number of reasons. Everyone knew it, Mustang included – when he fixed his cool intensity on you, it felt less like looking a man in the eye than it did like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. His charming smiles and expert flattery blinded many to his inherent danger at first, but even his shining veneer tarnished eventually: now, many were beginning to suspect that he was interested in political reform, which was every bit as dangerous as the transmutation circle on the back of his gloves.

Then there was the little matter of Fuhrer Bradley's death, which had been cleared up to the satisfaction of the rest of the military, but not to Weimar's comfort.

Although the official record stated that Bradley had actually been part of a massive alchemical conspiracy and had died when a transmutation went wrong, Weimar never could forget the fact that the Fuhrer had died in a flaming mansion – and to the best of his research ability, which was considerable, no one could account for where Mustang had been at the time. 

However, Weimar had found no proof whatsoever of any wrongdoing on Mustang's part, and in fact investigations had unearthed much evidence linking Bradley to this conspiracy to destroy the nation, which would absolve the man of his crimes in many people's eyes. After the revelation of the city below Central, most of the country seemed inclined to think that Bradley had gotten what had been coming to him. Fuhrer Hakuro didn't seem terribly inclined to question it, either – probably because he had gained so much from Bradley's untimely retirement.

But what if Mustang had killed him? The question wouldn't leave him alone. Who knew when the man would next decide that someone he disagreed with deserved to die, and take it upon himself to make that happen?

Whether Mustang had been involved in the Fuhrer's death or not, his plans for the future were at least as threatening as his past had been. Weimar couldn't shake the feeling that someday, the man was going to tell the country everything that had happened in Ishbal, and would paint the Ishballans as lambs in a slaughterhouse. In this selective retelling, all of the atrocities that the Ishballans had committed upon the Amestrian army would be conveniently eliminated, discarded because they didn't fit Mustang's chosen narrative. 

Even if they hadn't been unenlightened savages, the Ishballan rebels had been a threat to the order of the nation, and any threat to order had to be eliminated for the good of the rebels. The military couldn't very well go around mollycoddling rebels, sending them flowers and apology notes and begging their forgiveness on bended knee – no, Amestris would be a laughingstock. The army dealt with rebellion swiftly and decisively, both to maintain its reputation internationally and to quell any murmurs of dissent in other parts of the nation.

Mustang wanted to stir up malcontent, wanted to watch as military order dissolved to be replaced by God-only-knew-what. Weimar had no intention of allowing that to happen on his watch.

“But trying him would go against centuries of tradition,” said General Batir, his bushy eyebrows pulled down low. “Those ranked at Major Generals and higher have been immune to criminal charges other than treason since 1782, when General Aegis Moran was tried for triple murder. Are you suggesting we set that precedent aside to try Mustang? You understand that this would make us potentially vulnerable to criminal law, as well.”

Every man in the room was chiefly interested in retaining his own power. Lucky, the non-military ministers of affairs had nothing to lose if Mustang were tried: they could be tried for anything at any time if someone decided it was necessary, and lived in fear of the day when the political tide would turn against them. 

Batir, though acting in defense of his own power and privilege, had another weakness: he was quite the traditionalist, morally speaking. Squaring his shoulders, Weimar turned to the other man.

“True – but Mustang is also going against centuries of Amestrian military tradition by having carnal relations with men – and _young_ men, to make it worse. His sexual perversions are tarnishing the name of the Amestrian military.”

“His _alleged_ perversions,” Grumman pointed out, his long mustache twitching as he spoke. Grumman was really not on board with this. “And alleged relations.”

“Yes, alleged,” Weimar replied, the concession ground out through clenched teeth. “True enough. But the people of our great country are concerned with this, and how can they trust us if we don't seem to take their concerns seriously?”

There had been a great swell of anti-homosexual sentiment in the day since the first article had been printed. The newspapers were divided on whether Fullmetal was an innocent victim or a tawdry whore, but they were nearly unanimous in their condemnation of Mustang, who had so recently been their golden boy. Reading the papers that morning had been sheer delight.”

“There has been some precedent for such a thing,” the Minister of Finance offered, slowly, thoughtfully, “for such a thing. Only a few years ago, Colonel Avery Stilson was discharged dishonorably without trial for sexual acts unbecoming of an officer.”

Major Stilson had been caught fucking dogs. The situation was similar.

“Yes, thank you,” Weimar replied, with a smile at the other man.

“But Colonel Stilson was not a General,” noted another man.

Before Weimar could reply, the Minister of Transportation added:

“Also, I would hardly say that the allegations against General Mustang are proved beyond a doubt – _certainly_ not enough to discharge him without trial,” he said, tapping a pencil slowly against the table in front of him, “especially given that he is such a powerhouse as an alchemist and as a weapon. He also has a large amount of support both within the military and without, regardless of what the newspapers would have us believe. If we simply discharged him without proving the allegations, I suspect that he would become something of a martyr.”

“I never suggested that we simply discharge him. But I do think that it would be appropriate to have a trial. To uphold the strength of the State, we also must uphold its purity – and to do that, we need to purge it of any undesirable elements. Don't you agree?”

Fuhrer Hakuro made a thinking noise, his fingers laced in such a way that they hid his mouth.

“I think that we have heard enough, General Weimar,” the man said, after a long moment. “I think that you are dismissed for now. You will take a recess, we will continue to discuss the matter, and I will come to a decision by tomorrow.” Since he was the petitioner, Weimar himself wouldn't be allowed to stay for the resulting discussion, despite the fact that he was part of the senior staff.

That was fine. He had played his part, here, and now all he had to do was wait for the wheels to begin turning.

Weimar saluted, keeping his expression neutral over the rush of his emotions. The Fuhrer would decide in his favor, he knew: the rest of the staff was as disgusted and disturbed by Mustang as he was. Anybody would be. Why would anyone in their right minds knowingly suffer someone like him in their ranks?

Victory sat in the palm of his hand, and all he had to do was close his fingers around it. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sick of that old FMA fandom trope where Roy and Ed talk about how dangerous their relationship could be and then nothing ever comes of it? Me too! 
> 
> If you're still here and enjoying yourselves, I would love to hear from you. Every message from somebody who gives a damn about this thing injects love and life into it again.
> 
> <3 to those who've been following this regularly, I love you very much!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are officially going back on a two-week schedule. Striving for one week is actually getting quite stressful to me ^^; I may reevaluate at a later date, but for now, the next posting date should be Friday, October 12.
> 
> I don't know if this is edited to satisfaction or not, but I'm sick of looking at it, so you guys get it instead!
> 
> Also, porn once again!
> 
> Thanks to the five of you who are actually reading this thing ^^; I hope you enjoy it!

**Chapter 5**

*

The court-martial declaration arrived at Roy's office complex without warning at two o'clock, a letter delivered by an unassuming young man who passed it over with shaking hands. As soon as Riza saw the trembling envelope, she knew what it was: she thanked the man and took it back to her office, never betraying the cold that prickled down the back of her neck, the dread that settled in her chest. She sat down at her desk and set the thing down in front of her, staring at it, willing it to be something other than what she guessed.

The ornamentation gave it away: the front of the envelope was held closed by the Fuhrer's embossed gold seal, and the back read _General Roy Mustang,_ in the even curves of a steady hand.

She took her plain letter-opener from her desk and slid it through the top of the envelope, then pulled the letter out, sitting down at her desk as she unfolded it.

_It is hereby our decree that one General Roy Mustang shall report for trial in the Military Court of Amestris on September the Eighteenth of this year, to defend himself against the allegations set forth against him. These crimes include fraternization with a subordinate and statutory rape, for his alleged homosexual relationship with Edward Elric, the former Fullmetal Alchemist._

_The above-listed crimes shall be punishable by a dishonorable discharge from the Amestrian military and a maximum sentence of ten years in prison for each charge._

_His guilt or innocence shall be evaluated in front of a panel of three judges, who will remain anonymous until the beginning of the trial. In the absence of a formal accuser, a lawyer will be appointed to prosecute him on behalf of the State. Both sides will be allowed five witnesses. The judges will decide the verdict after a maximum of a three day trial._

_A bail of 100,000 cenz must be provided to the Bailiff of the Courts Martial by the date of September the Fifth, if jail time prior to the trial is to be avoided._

_This, in the name of Fuhrer Hakuro, and signed by his hand._

Riza Hawkeye was not a woman easily swayed to any emotion, but the letter clutched between her hands made her afraid, just for a moment. In Amestris, “justice” was a word usually spoken with more than a bit of irony. 

Over the years, she had gained some distant experience with the Amestrian Courts-Martial, and heard of the judgements of the civilian courts through word of mouth or newspaper reports. The accused were guilty until proven innocent, though proving someone innocent after the government had decided that he or she was guilty was no small task.

In all honesty, the general was lucky that his alleged crime was of the nonviolent type: if it had been a different type of crime, or the general less useful to the state, he might have been convicted and imprisoned without the state having to go through the “embarrassment” of a trial. A memory of Shou Tucker hit her, unbidden: she hadn't thought of him for years.

It was General Mustang's popularity, his celebrity, that was in this case his downfall, just as his utility was his saving grace. It was unlikely that the military brass would ever have put him on trial if he hadn't been so popular prior to the scandal: if that had been the case, then perhaps the whole country wouldn't have started gossiping about him so excitedly, and the incident might not have been so embarrassing for the state.

She let out a long breath and put the letter down on her desk. This new development necessitated a new plan. For that, they would need the whole team, brainstorming together, working together. She was not a political strategist, nor any kind of strategist: mostly, she was a good soldier, and did as she was ordered as efficiently as she could. Others took care of the planning. She just did what the general needed, when he needed it, and supported him in any way she could.

At that moment, supporting him meant not telling him about it – not yet. He was busy with his work, speaking and negotiating with Ambassador Rosenthal, both making sure that relations with Creta stayed amicable and expending as much of the military's energy as he could on the issue. He might alternately be discussing a trade benefiting Creta in return for them letting the issue of the border towns go, and directing border defenses the next, posting garrisons to towns there, giving protection to the men and women who worked the iron mines. 

This work was crucially important for its own sake – but also, for Roy, it was important largely because if he made a grand fuss over foreign threats, the less the military was likely to have the spare energy required to exterminate the Ishballan refugees. At that moment, she couldn't interrupt him for personal issues, no matter how pressing they might seem. Many thousands of lives were on the line.

This had to be up to Hawkeye.

She folded the letter again and slid it back into its envelope, set it in her top desk drawer, then stood up. She would deal with this as quickly and discreetly as possible.

No sooner had she stepped around her desk than she heard a knock on her door – strange, as the day's mail had already arrived, Fuery and Falman were out on business, and neither Havoc nor Breda usually bothered knocking.

“Come in,” she said, and the door swung open to reveal one Alphonse Elric, a binder clasped between crossed arms.

“Hello, Major,” he said, moving the binder to his side and giving her a little bow, even though he had never been in any way her subordinate. Not even his brother had any ties to military hierarchy anymore. His politeness took strange forms sometimes, but it was charming nonetheless. “I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed.

“Alphonse,” she said, feeling a tension she hadn't known she had been holding on to disappear from her shoulders as she realized that she was safe, for the moment. It could have been another letter full of bad news, or a newspaper article, but it wasn't. “It's good to see you,” she said, genuinely.

“Ah, and you too, Major,” he said, and she wondered if he would ever be comfortable calling any of them by their names instead of their titles. “I figured out some things, you know, about the investigation: I thought I should tell you.”

“Aren't you working under Lieutenant Colonel Mayer in Investigations? You should probably report your findings to him.”

“Of course. I already did that. I just thought you'd want to know, too.” He paused, then walked over to sit down on the chair on the visitors' side of her desk and plopped his binder down, there. She walked around the table and did the same with her own seat.

“Here,” he said, opening up the binder to a particular page and then turning the book around so that it faced her. “Take a look at this article.” There, copied in a neat hand and in all of its capitalized glory, there was a headline above a long article:

_B. GENERAL TORRIMAN CAUGHT IN TRYST WITH SISTER?_

And then, the byline: _Guy Harriet._

Hawkeye frowned. The man who had written all of those things about General Mustang seemed to have some unsavory tendencies.

“And check this out,” Alphonse continued, flipping to the next page. There was another article, proclaiming similarly damning allegations against a different man, again written by Harriet. Alphonse flipped the page again, and there was a third.

“It looks like Guy Harriet has a history of instigating media storms around politicians over all kinds of scandals – many of them sex-related, but not all of them. At least one of the men he accused got off because he could prove that all of the stuff in the article was totally made up. I haven't managed to check court records yet to see whether he got sued for slander or not, but I did check through the military records of the men he accused.” He turned the binder around and thumbed through the pages until he found the one he was looking for. This was an official copy of one of the men's profiles, complete with photograph and medical history. “There seems to be a common theme: many of them were politically progressive, or at least as progressive as one could get under Fuhrer Bradley. One of them publicly opposed sending the State Alchemists into Ishbal. Another one of them was pushing for giving more power to the parliament.”

Certain factors within the military would not have taken kindly to that, of course.

Once, on a quiet walk from headquarters to their homes, Roy had casually told her that after Ishbal, he had considered running for election to the parliament, but further military experience had disabused him of that notion. The parliament was a sham, little more than a mouthpiece for the decisions of the Fuhrer: no debate occurred in that honorable institution on any issue more important than road repair. On anything else, they existed to spout out the Fuhrer's declarations as if said decision had been made in the legislature in a democratic fashion. Besides, even if the parliament had been allowed to vote and make decisions, the military rigged all of the elections anyway, a fact which was commonly known and met with a certain degree of resignation.

Military advancement was the only path to real power, and therefore the only way to effect true change in the world. It was sad, but it was true: in order to change the rules of an autocracy, he would have to first be an autocrat.

Hawkeye gave a thinking hum and scanned the page. This was certainly interesting.

“So,” she began, slowly, “you're saying that Harriet has been making up stories to discredit people politically and have them arrested for years.”

“Yes,” said Al. “Exactly. I think we may be looking at a more long-term connection between this reporter and someone within the military: this isn't their first time in the ring together.”

“Or perhaps he's just a journalist with a tendency towards sensationalism and a conservative political bent,” she said, just to offer an alternate possibility. She wasn't stupid, and she remembered General Mustang's comments about General Weimar.

“Maybe,” Al said, eyes roving down the page. “It's possible, I guess. But most of these men weren't exactly high-profile, you know? If a journalist was going to make up a sex scandal for the fun of it, you'd think he'd go more for the people in the public eye. And you know what's even weirder? That he keeps being allowed to write this stuff. Most criticism of the military gets shut down pretty quickly. Genuine scandals never seem to make it to the newspapers, have you ever noticed?”

A few years past, a major general had been accused of sexually assaulting a young waitress who worked at a bar he frequented. She remembered a police detachment marching up to headquarters, demanding to see the man so they could ask him some questions, and she remembered them being turned away at the door. She didn't think anything had ever happened to the man.

Riza nodded, and let her eyes slide across the paper for a moment, thoughtful.

“Thank you, Alphonse. You've done good work. We appreciate it.” She closed the binder, and pushed it forward, towards Al. “Now,” she started, sitting up straight in her chair, “Let me share some information with you. What do you know about General Mikhael Weimar?”

*

As the day grew longer, Edward felt the distant sense creep up on him that he was going to need to go see Roy that night. It was nothing so strong as a guess, but something more like intuition: his lover needed company. He said goodbye to Al at the door to the lab, ignoring the pitying look sent to him by Margaret from Inorganics, and flung off his lab coat onto the floor next to the rack as he trotted out into the failing sunlight. Roy’s house wasn’t a long walk from the lab, and he made good time, avoiding the main roads in favor of back streets.

The porch lights were already lit when Edward arrived, the first moths of evening beginning to flicker noisily about them. Ed tried the door: it was unlocked. He didn’t hear anything inside, so he went ahead and let himself in.

“Hello?” he asked, venturing into the entryway – he neglected to take off his dirty shoes before padding through the living room. This didn’t particularly bother him as the floor was mostly wood, anyway, and easily cleaned. What did bother him was the lack of a response.

“Hello?” he tried again, looking around for any sign: the liquor cupboard was open, which was a sign, but not a good one. Ed sped up, arrowing past the staircase to the hallway that led to the study. “Roy?”

“I’m in here,” he heard, through the doorway: a turn to the left, and he was in Roy’s study. He couldn’t see most of the man over the back of the thick wooden armchair that sat to the right of the tall chess table that had held many more wine cups over the years than chess pieces: true to form, that night it played host to a bottle and a glass cup. “What brings you here tonight?” Roy asked. His voice sounded dead, quiet, in a way that made Ed shiver.

“You, ‘course. Why the hell else would I be in this lousy dump?” Edward said with a little laugh, moving around to the front of the chair. “I figured you could use some company. What’ve you been up to today, General?” he asked, deliberately keeping his tone light.

The scene before him challenged his determined cheer: Roy’s eyes barely flickered towards him as the younger man walked in front of him – distant, unfocused, his gaze passed out the window and onto the street beyond. Drawing closer, Ed noted that the bottle of whiskey was half-empty. It had been nearly full the day before, Ed was sure of it.

Sometimes Roy’s alcohol tolerance scared him more than he’d like to admit. What dark times had the man gotten through with no company but his bottle? He didn’t think he’d like the answers he’d get if he asked.

“Hey, you,” said Edward, soft, his lips turning down into a frown. He reached out for the whiskey bottle. “You’ve had enough for one evening.” Before he could take it away, Roy put his hand out and put a hand on his bottle to stop him.

“It’s early yet,” said Roy, with a lopsided smile. “Plenty of time for more. Pour yourself a glass.”

“I would, if you weren’t already shitfaced enough for the both of us. This isn’t like you, Roy.” Not anymore, anyway. “What happened?” Forcefully, he pulled the bottle away: his lover’s hand slipped off like he hadn’t actually cared that much after all. Ed set it down on the floor under the library window, where it was just too much trouble for Roy to go over and get it.

“Oh, nothing happened,” he said. “I’m just a pedophile and a rapist, is all, watching my dreams and hopes crumble further around me with every passing day. That’s all. Nothing terribly important,” he said, bringing his cup to his lips to drain it of the last of the amber liquid.

Ed’s frown deepened as the knot in his throat tightened. He couldn’t decide whether to step forward or away. He crossed his arms.

“Roy…” he said. “That's nothin' to go getting drunk like this over. It’s not so bad. You told me yourself you have lots of people working on it. You have _Al_ working on it. You told me the plan. You dig up shit on this reporter fucker – and I'm sure there's a ton of. All you have to do is find all that shit and tell people about it. When everybody realizes he's a lying bastard, nobody will take his accusations seriously anymore.”

The tense, short noise Roy made sounded nothing like laughter.

“Too late for that approach, Ed. I’m to report in dress uniform to the Amestrian military court for my trial in just a few weeks.”

Those words stabbed Ed through the stomach. _If it weren't for me..._ Cutting that train of thought off at the source, he didn’t let his expression change. Part of him wanted to move to comfort the other man. He didn’t. Instead, he widened his stance, and opened his mouth.

“So what?” he snapped, hunching his shoulders further. “So fucking what? You gonna let that get the best of you? You just gonna sit around till then and mope about it? If you're gonna be Fuhrer of Amestris, you can't let something stupid like this stop you.. Just get up there and show those bastards what you’re made of, and then everything will be fine.”

For the first time, Ed felt like his lover's eyes really focused on him, actually _saw_ him through the haze of the alcohol and – despair? The man crooked a smile.

“Everything’s so simple to you, isn’t it, Ed?”

_No,_ thought Ed. _It’s not that simple. But at the same time, it has to be._

“Of course it is,” he snapped, because that was what Roy needed to hear. “Whatever happens, you get back up and keep going. You don’t hear that some bastards want to knock you over and then do it for them to save them the trouble. This isn't like you, Mustang. You’ve been through a lot worse than this, and made it out fine.”

That seemed to make Roy sit up a bit straighter in his chair, his mouth curving downward.

“I’m not ‘knocking myself over.’ The damage has been done. Even if by some chance I am acquitted at the trial, the public has lost faith in me. Politics is a delicate process, Edward, not that I’d expect you to understand something so subtle. Unfortunately, I cannot control what people think of me, and their opinions are crucial to achieving my end goals. This could destroy everything I have worked for.”

The grim set of Ed's face covered his satisfaction. Every time he could provoke Roy, get a real emotional reaction out of him, he felt a strange pride – only _he_ could break down the man's emotional walls, crack the calm mask he wore. He barreled forward.

“Or it could be a little bit of radio static that everybody forgets. Or, if you have the balls to take it on, it could even be a situation in which the innocent, unfairly accused Roy Mustang proves what a big man he is. Don’t go insulting my intelligence, old man. I get your political whatever,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “But if it’s gonna be too hard for you, you can just give up. Don’t fuckin' mope around about it, drinkin' yourself into a hole.”

“I’m not _moping,_ ” Mustang snapped back. “I’m just _understandably concerned_ because I’m suddenly facing a situation in which I could conceivably be stripped of my rank, discharged from the military, and be jailed as a rapist all in one day. I think I have a right to my bottle.”

“Yeah, well, you’re innocent, and it’ll all come out in the trial. You wouldn't need to be worried unless the shit they're saying were true.”

“Your naiveté is adorable,” said Roy, his voice ice. “But innocence of the crime is no guarantee that you won’t be convicted in the great nation of Amestris. The media can condemn a person before they’ve even set foot in a courtroom: even if the newspapers don't give a damn about your trial, much of how the the sentence goes depends entirely on who has the judge’s ear, or who can write the biggest check. Don’t lecture me about things you know nothing about.”

“I’m not fucking _naïve,_ don’t you say that again,” Edward snapped, an angry gesture thrown for emphasis. He had to end this soon, or they both would _really_ be mad, and that wouldn't be good. “It's not like I think you're gonna be given the red carpet treatment. It's not like I think you're not gonna have to work your ass off for it. But you can’t sit there and whine about how it's all gonna be so _hard_ if you wanna change this country. If you can't handle this, then you sure as hell can't handle being Fuhrer.”

Roy stood up from his chair, back painfully straight, and looked down at his lover, expression dark.

“Edward,” he began, carefully, “I suggest you stop before I lose my temper.”

And then Ed's expression broke into a grin – Roy's brow wrinkled in sudden confusion.

“That’s more like it,” he said, meeting Roy’s eyes. “Good. You're out of that goddamn chair.” 

Roy’s brow furrowed.

“What?” he asked, a bit stupidly – but that was alright, the alcohol was probably scrambling his brains some.

“I was baiting you, dumbass. Tryin' to make you mad – it’s way better than you being all weepy and shit. You’re strong when you’re mad, and you need to be strong right now.”

“…Baiting me?” he asked, like the words had no meaning.

“Yeah. I couldn’t have you just sitting there and drinking your life away, worrying about shit, when you could be _not_ worrying about shit. The worrying never helps – trust me, I know,” he said, with a dry laugh. “I knew I just had to get you mad, and you'd pick yourself up just to prove me wrong. I’m not stupid, I know how dangerous this whole situation is for you. I know it must be scary as hell. But the fact that you have to play this stupid game doesn't mean you've automatically lost. Besides, the Roy Mustang I know doesn’t let shit like this get him down.”

Mustang wobbled on unsteady legs, the look of fury almost melted into confusion. His metal hand shot out to support the man, to keep him from falling.

“You can do it. You may be a dumbass, but you’re the smartest dumbass I’ve ever met,” he said, with a soft laugh. “Now let’s get you some water.”

Roy gave a tiny smile that grew, slowly.

“Is that right,” he said, putting a hand out to Ed’s cheek, stroking it with the back of his hand. “Baiting me. You know, I used to do the same for you.”

Scowling, Ed moved himself under Roy’s arm where he could support the man properly, keep him from stumbling and falling flat on his face or hitting his head on something, which would be a really stupid way for the Flame Alchemist to die.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ed's right arm wrapped tightly around the other man's back, they started off, swaying more than walking towards the kitchen.

“When you were younger. I'd do whatever I could to make you mad, to get you up on your feet again by making you want to prove me wrong. That's probably the fastest way to motivate you.”

Ed snorted. Of course he knew that was what Mustang had been doing – he had realized it a few years back, unfortunately after he had left the military and therefore too late for the knowledge to really do him any good. Who did Roy think Ed had learned to do it from? But he wouldn't admit that, especially not now.

“Like hell. You were just a bastard with a sense of smug superiority and a god complex. You made me mad because you thought it was funny.”

“Not denying that,” Roy said with a laugh. “It _was_ pretty funny.” He paused, and when he started again his voice was quieter. Ed glanced up to see that the look in Roy’s eyes had once again grown thoughtful, distant. “But some days, you used to look... hollow. That’s the best way I can describe it. Like the soldiers in Ishbal, caught up in all of the terrible things you'd seen and done. Nobody so young should ever have to look like that.” 

In the resounding quiet, Ed listened to the sound of his own breathing, their footsteps on the wooden floor. 

Then, Roy spoke again, once again amused, teasing: “And you had such a hair trigger back then. Making you explode was so very easy.” Ed huffed. The man said, more seriously, “I’d rather you look angry than look so old. I’m sure you understand.”

Edward shifted his arm around Roy’s waist. Usually, the man wasn't so talkative on serious topics. It must be the alcohol, he decided, loosening his lips. He had only ever heard Mustang mention Ishbal a handful of times during the whole time they had known each other – it wasn’t something the general liked to talk about, and the younger man could see why. Ed never talked about his own sins if he could help it. It was bad enough that they lived in his head forever: why would he ever want to let them out in the open again?

Though he never would have admitted it out loud, Mustang's admission was a little bit touching. Back then, it had been easy to assume that the man didn’t care, that he was exactly what he pretended to be – an overcontrolling asshole, intriguing and infuriating, untouchable. But the very fact that Mustang would let on that he had cared so much meant that Ed had been allowed behind the mask, now – and the man underneath was far different from the one outside, and much more interesting.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, turning left into the living room instead of the kitchen. He walked carefully, Roy’s weight supported on his shoulder. “I still think you're full of shit,” he said, almost fondly. “Now let’s get you that glass of water before you pass out on me, then get you to bed.” He helped the other man sit down on the living room couch, and didn’t let his surprise show when the man grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to crush their mouths together. Roy's tongue slid across Ed's bottom lip, asking permission, and Edward relaxed, letting the man plunder his mouth, unhurriedly mirroring his movements. Whiskey flavored the kiss, a not unpleasant tang, and somehow that made all the difference: he threw intention to the wind, then sat down on the other man’s lap, fisting Roy's uniform collar in his metal hand.

When they pulled apart, Roy leaned forward, resting his forehead on Ed’s own.

“You understand why this is so worrisome to me. If I’m stripped of my rank, if I’m discharged or jailed, then I have no way to atone for the things I did.” To his credit, his voice didn’t shake much. “Well, 'atone' is the wrong word – nothing I could do can erase my sins. But if they take me down now, I won’t be able to do anything to change this country so it won’t happen again, to make reparations to the kinsmen of the men and women I murdered. What will I live for, then?”

The wound in Roy's voice was so plain, so raw, that just this once, Ed felt the urge to respond to his lover as he would Alphonse, with comfort and reassurance.

“ _If_ that happened,” Edward started, giving his lover a faint smile, “you’d figure something out. But now's not the time to start workin' on Plan F – you haven’t lost yet. Just keep being General Mustang, and give ‘em hell. You’ll kick their asses.”

Roy laughed, the sound warm and rumbling below Ed’s fingers.

“You know, I never would have guessed you were such an optimist.”

“I’m not an optimist, I’m just stubborn as hell. If something doesn’t work for you, you punch it ‘till it does. ‘s worked for me so far.”

“Indeed it has,” Roy replied, before kissing him again, tongue darting into Edward’s mouth to stroke, twist – the younger returned it immediately, fiercely, flesh hand drifting up the man’s neck to thread through his hair. A sudden moment of decision: then, Ed swung a leg over Roy’s lap, straddling the man's legs and pressing their crotches together. He shifted, readjusting himself: the friction felt good on his cock, so he did it again, just to make their bodies rub against each other. A hissed breath sounded in Edward's ear, accompanied the twitch and increased hardness between Roy's legs – the blonde rocked his hips in a circle, then repeated it, grinding himself against the other man’s burgeoning erection.

“I thought you were going to,” started Roy, breathing beginning to strain, “get me a glass of water.”

Ed pressed himself forward – spreading his legs even wider, the pose wanton, obscene – continuing the steady slide. One particular motion sent pleasure crackling through him, connecting every nerve to the spark in his loins, and he gave a soft moan.

“I think the water can wait, don’t you?” Edward said, bending down to scrape teeth over Roy’s neck, then leaving light kisses where the trail of his teeth had been. “I think we have more pressing issues to deal with.” Those words shivered across Roy’s skin, hardening his cock and shortening his breath. 

Roy hissed as the motion of Edward’s hips in his lap became regular, slow, deliberate: this was not a frenzied friction of need, but a tease, entirely intended to frustrate Roy with its precarious balance of “God, yes” and “Not enough.”

“Mmm, Edward,” said Mustang between passes in which he explored the younger man’s willing mouth, “I’m not sure I’m up to my regular standard tonight. You might want to stop while you’re ahead.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Edward, the words coming out a purr, a promise, “you won’t have to do much.”

With that, he slid off Roy's lap – a groan of disappointment met that, but he wouldn't mind for long – and onto to the ground in front of the other man. He pushed the general's knees apart, leaving himself room to lean forward and trace his lips over the hardness in the front of his lover’s pants.

“God, you – mm –” Edward's mouth teased the head of Roy's cock “– know how to make a man feel better, don’t you?”

A satisfied smirk was Edward's only response: he reached up to undo the clasp at the waist of Roy’s pants, then brought the zipper down. After a brief moment of arranging, he took the man’s cock in his hand, stroking it gently with warm fingertips, enjoying the velvet feeling of it, the heat on his skin. The general’s breath came harder: he wasn’t much of one for vocal expressions during sex, and Edward took breaking the man down until he cried out in his pleasure as a personal challenge.

He leaned forward and licked the tip, swirled his tongue around it to catch the spot underneath the ridge. The muscles in Roy’s legs tightened, and the sharp exhalation he made was almost as good as a moan.

The noise made his own body react, but he ignored his own sharp want, focusing on his lover's silken heat: he licked again, a short stroke, then drew his tongue in a line from base to tip, following the vein underneath. Roy’s fingers dug into the chair arms, turning his knuckles white. Even after all this time, Ed still couldn't believe how easily he could coax such reactions out of the other man.

He could do better than just this, though.

Ed reached into his large jacket pocket, then closed his hand around leather – one particular toy he had been keeping on him, planning to make use of it as soon as possible. Pulling away from Roy's cock, he drew it out, – Roy made a little disappointed noise that shivered straight down to Ed’s groin. Closing his eyes to hide any uncertainty, to shut down his moment of internal struggle – _I'm not his dog, not anyone’s, not a possession_ – he brought the collar up to his neck and fastened it there. There was a moment of silence.

“Edward,” growled Roy, breaking through the quiet: his fingers trailed down the side of Ed’s neck, and the younger man leaned in to the touch. “You realize that when you’re wearing that, I may not be able to hold myself back.”

“I was counting on it, yeah,” said Edward, letting his own eyes slide open to see his lover’s, half lidded and lustful, focused on that one simple band. Adrenaline spiked in Ed then, at the knowledge of what Roy wanted to do to him, of what he could _make_ Roy do to him, just by clasping a bit of leather around his neck. “I don't want you to hold yourself back. I definitely wouldn’t trust you with a whip or a cane when you're drunk like this –” though the thought of it sent shivers of excitement down Ed’s spine “– but I’m happy just to be spanked.”

Fingers closed around Ed’s collar, pulling and tightening until the press of it around the younger man’s neck became uncomfortable – a beat, two, another, as it dug in further, restricting the flow of blood, of air, shrinking his world to only the space around him, to his moment-to-moment survival – adrenaline spiked in him – his head felt somehow light, his body tingled – 

Then, Mustang bent forward to speak into Ed’s ear.

“You don’t get to decide,” he said, and even the faint touch of whiskey on his breath was somehow arousing. “I’m your commanding officer. You’ll be happy with whatever I decide to give you.”

A sudden release of pressure brought blood rushing back into Ed's head and eyes, gasping as oxygen once again suffused his lungs. When his breathing had evened out, his conscious thought returned, he replied.

“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice small.

“Stand up,” said Roy, his Voice back: even copious amounts of alcohol couldn’t keep him from being utterly authoritative, almost magisterial.

Edward didn’t say a word as he rose to his feet.

“Tell me that you want to undress for me,” he said, casually, a man utterly certain of his own power.

Ed’s brow furrowed, confused by the request: usually, at this point in the play, Roy just gave orders. He didn't normally ask for votes.

“You make too many requests, Fullmetal. You need to learn to desire only what I want. My desires are _your_ desires. You don’t get to choose what you want. That’s all up to me. You don't even _know_ what you want. But I do,” he said, eyes half-lidded and lustful.

Ed groaned, deep in his throat. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Close, but not what I ordered you to do. Try again: what do you want?”

“I want... to undress for you, sir,” Edward said, his eyes on the ground, his erection pressing painfully against the constriction of his pants.

“Now ask me,” the General said, eyes intense.

“Please, let me undress for you, sir,” he said, the man’s stare setting a fire in his skin.

His hands shook as he stripped out of his jacket, left it in a heap on the tile floor; next came his shirt, the buttons a challenge in his current state of nerves; then, the tank top underneath came off, crumpled on top of his other clothing, leaving him bare of chest and unprotected from Roy’s gaze.

“You are the most beautiful thing,” Roy said, and the look on his face was so enraptured that Ed faltered in the face of it. Then his eyes narrowed, his gaze even more intense: “I love breaking beautiful things.”

And that was it: Ed was over the edge, into that place where intention and focus became hazy, where the only two things that he could really think about were the General’s orders and his own intense arousal. His erection throbbed, but he wouldn’t touch it.

“Does this turn you on, Fullmetal?” the general drawled, never moving even an inch, never reaching to touch or to help. “You want me to break you, then put you back together again?”

“Yes, sir,” said Fullmetal, his words nearly coming out a whine, but he quelled his embarrassment at the noise: his needy abandon would please the General, and he would endure anything for that.

“Good, because I want to. Now, ask me to be allowed to take the rest of your clothes off.”

“Please, sir. Let me be naked for you,” he said, his voice shaking enough that it surprised him.

The General gave a long, slanted smirk that elicited shivers in the younger man before he even opened his mouth to reply.

“Since you asked so nicely, yes. I will grant your request. Strip.”

Buttons came undone: pants came down, followed by boxer shorts, leaving Ed’s erection uncovered and unmistakable. He kept his hands by his sides, fighting the instinctive desires to cover himself, or to touch himself,. He didn’t want to relieve the tension in his cock until Roy wanted him to.

“Mm, yes,” said Roy, moving a hand to the front of his own pants to slide fingers over what he found there, long strokes over skin that would be aching with need. “Now come here. Lay yourself down over my lap.” The general shifted, spread his knees to better support the other man. Edward did as ordered, unsure whether he felt more acutely Roy's eyes on his bare, vulnerable ass where it sat directly in front of the other man, or the painful throbbing of his erection, pressing into the space between Roy's legs, with nothing to grind on or touch for some measure of relief. The rest of his body lay on the couch, more or less flat, so the general could more easily access all of him.

Heat flushed through his body: no matter how many times he found himself in this situation, it still sent that same dual shock of shame and want through him – but in truth, he knew that the burning shame at the thought of what he was letting the other man do was part of the reason he liked it so much. The shame thrilled him, and the General's praise in the face of it gave Ed a sense of catharsis like nothing else in the world.

Titillating, infuriating, he could feel the tip of Roy's erection tracing across his stomach, leaving wet patterns on his skin every time he shifted. 

He groaned and closed his eyes as Roy’s fingers began to dance over the skin of his ass, rough fingers over soft skin. Every movement, every faint scrape of nails, left a trail of memory over his skin so intense it was almost painful. The tease continued long enough that he almost wasn't expecting it when the hand came down in a hard blow.

Edward writhed: the sudden strike _hurt_ his oversensitive skin, and all he wanted was some friction on his cock, anything to give him relief. He thrust forward, but still, his cock met only air: he whined, eyes closed, and was rewarded with another blow, then another – down his legs, up his back, each blow sending a rush of need to his already aching groin. Edward's stomach tightened and his pulse increased: another blow came, then Roy's teeth sank hard into his shoulder, red-hot bliss. A soft cry: he wished sometimes that he could contain his voice better, could make his lover work harder for that kind of mindless response, but really, in the moment, he usually couldn't bring himself to give a damn.

Without warning, Roy shoved something warm and wet all the way up Ed's ass until it was buried there. A finger, of course: it wriggled inside of him, and then – 

“Oh, _fuck,_ ” he cried out as the finger hit his sweet spot, its tiny thrusting motions stimulating it almost more than he could stand – then, the feeling was gone again as the man's fingers pulled out, to Edward's dismay. Roy delivered another blow to Ed's ass, the feeling of skin on skin sensual, arousing but frustrating.

“Mmm, are you wanting something?” the general asked, the side of his arm connecting with Ed's back even more forcefully. Any returning words turned to mindless groans in Ed's throat, the churn of his thoughts slow and halting through the haze of endorphins and arousal. “Ask for it.”

The high whimper that tore itself from his mouth was almost a laugh of desperation: his lover was asking the impossible: he knew he wouldn't be able to form a coherent sentence. As it became increasingly clear that Ed wasn't going to reply, Roy clenched the collar with his free hand, restricting Ed's air flow.

“No? You won't ask?” Roy's fingernails clawed down Ed's back, and the sudden, sharp pain of it started his shallow panting. “And here I thought you were such a good little pet. Do I need to teach you obedience again?” A pause: he traced a finger around Ed's entrance, just enough to frustrate the sensitive skin, to make Ed need it more.

Whimpering louder, Ed rocked forward and again met only empty air, rocked back to find that the general had withdrawn his hand. The pressure on his neck loosened, and he gasped, recovering his world for only a moment before discovering that he had been flipped all around so that he laid on his back across Roy's lap, his body arched up towards the other man. He closed his eyes, as if that could be some defense against the general's hungry gaze – but he felt it, even when he couldn't see it.

“Don't get me wrong – I love hearing you whine, Fullmetal,” he purred, and Edward's body knew instinctually that the words were true. “I love hearing you cry because I've broken you down, hearing the noises you make when you've lost the ability to speak. But if you're going to get what you want, you have to be able to ask me for it.” he said, tracing fingers over the sensitive hairs on his back. I'm generous. All you have to do is say the words.”

Edward opened his mouth, tried to remember the right ones, remember which ones had turned the general on so much in the past.

“Please, sir,” he said, around the dryness in his mouth. Some days, the pleading still came hard to him, struggling as he was against a lifetime of instinct. He kept going anyway. “Use me, however you want. Whatever you want me to do, please let me do it for you. I want to make you come.”

The groan Roy gave at that was warm and thrilling, a physical sensation up the base of Ed's spine. After a moment, he said:

“And if what I wanted didn't involve letting _you_ come at all? What if I wanted to tie you up, to leave you here, frustrated?” His hand moved to the insides of Ed's thighs, indicating with a firm pressure that he was to spread them, to allow the man better access. Flooded with intense relief, he did so immediately: he hardly needed to be asked again. “Mm... you're such a wanton little slut, aren't you,” he said, with a tone of such unmistakable desire that the words turned to a compliment in his mouth. The finger he traced over Ed's entrance was light to the point of tickling, and even Ed's sudden, violent squirm didn't help matters, didn't make the pressure any more satisfying. Roy kept on teasing, drawing the nails of his other hand lightly up and down the insides of the younger man's thighs, then moving up to do the same to Ed's nipple. He tried not to do move, not to whine or groan: his lover might take any noise he made as an answer, and any answer to that question would be the wrong answer.

The seconds drew on interminably, the teasing becoming almost unbearable: Ed bucked down into the General's lap, whimpered when, again, there was no relief. Finally, he forced his throat to speak, his mouth into motion.

“I would be happy,” he started, struggling through every word, “just to know that you were satisfied. That would be enough.” Most of him absolutely meant that: the other part could have started crying to hear it.

And then a warm, wet tongue slid from his nipple all the way up the side of Ed's neck. Edward let out a loud sob.

“Is that right?” Roy murmured, low, in his ear. “You would be satisfied just by feeling my come drip down the insides of your thighs? Tasting it in your mouth? Seeing it on your stomach?” The man's tongue flickered out to lick Edward's bottom lip, then he said: “Mm, could you come just from sucking me off?” That earned another whimper. Ed tried to sit up, to better capture those lips in his own, but the heavy force of an arm across his throat kept him down. His legs stayed open, and the sheer vulnerability of the position excited him, like it had so many times before.

“You're frustrated now, aren't you,” Roy purred, bending over the other man's chest to give another quick, wet stroke to Edward's nipple. The blonde's breathing had turned to panting, uncontrollable, and he moaned as he pressed upwards into that wonderful heat, but found the stimulation gone again as quickly. If the general kept on teasing him so terribly for much longer, then any touch at all would make him come. “You want it so badly. Your body is telling me that your mouth is lying. Your body is telling me that you're going to whimper and sob and beg until I give in and fuck you, and then you're going to scream until you come all over yourself. Tell me truly, Fullmetal. How desperate are you to have my cock up your ass?”

Ed found a sob escaping his mouth instead of an answer: Roy's mouth had descended on his nipple again, and this time it wasn't going away. He sucked, lightly, ran his tongue around the pebbled hardness, then flickered that tongue so quickly that pleasure flared all through his body, shooting from his chest away to his extremities. The attention continued, and Ed's mouth hung open, emitting little strangled noises with every breath: distantly, he wondered if he could orgasm just from that tongue, torturing his chest. He could feel himself getting closer, enough that it was beginning to drive him mad.

Roy's mouth pulled away, and Ed could have cried.

“Well, Fullmetal?” he asked, his voice dark and full of promise. “I'm still waiting for your answer.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” he said, in a small voice. “I'm so sorry. I lied, before. I want to come. I'm – I'm desperate. I want it so badly. _Please._ Sir. Master.” He writhed on the General's lap, then regretted it: he hadn't thought he could _be_ more aroused, but the drag of the General's naked cock across his skin as he shifted just made it worse. The next breath he drew was ragged. “Sir. _Please,_ ” he said again, all thoughts of resolve long forgotten.

Then, Roy's lips covered his own: Ed's were open in a heartbeat, tongue dancing to match his lover's, tangling and stroking in the wet heat. When he pulled back, there was a smirk on his face that made Ed shiver.

“Yes,” he purred, bending down again to lick at Ed's neck, to nip at black leather, just to remind Ed it was there. “The invincible Fullmetal Alchemist, collared and begging in my lap. I can take pity on you. You look like you need it _so much._ And I'm the only one who can do this to you – make you lose your famous pride, make you give it up to me by choice. Sit up,” he purred, into Ed's ear, and he did, still in Roy's lap. “Now, pleasure yourself, gently: touch your own nipples.” Edward, squeezing his eyes shut, did as asked – but even that touch was interrupted by Roy's orders. “I said _lightly,_ Fullmetal.” The lack of pressure made it less pleasure than it was absolute _torture,_ and Roy watched, enraptured. That look on his face was the only thing making Edward keep going – part of him considered stopping, considered tweaking those nubs harder until his cock felt it, until he came – but disobeying would be cause for retribution, and right then Edward wanted satisfaction more than he wanted to be punished.

“Good,” Roy purred, closing teeth gently around the younger man's ear. “You're doing well. You're sexy when you look so tortured, so desperate.”

Ed groaned, and the general rewarded him with a gentle kiss to the sensitive skin of his neck.

“Alright. You may stop now,” he said, and Edward did, simultaneously disappointed and relieved by the lack of sensation. “Now, put your arms here,” he said, using a hand to guide Edward's limbs where he wanted them to go. Ed followed, putting his arms around the other man's neck. They kissed again, the younger man's naked, sweat-slick body pressed up against the uniform cloth, and Roy's erection resting, heavy, against Ed's own. 

“Now, take the lube,” the general said – a quick glance around told Ed that the man had balanced the little glass jar of it on the back of the couch; he took it in hand – “and make my cock slick for you.” Two fingers dipped into the oil, coming away slick and dripping. Roy did the same with his own, after, and as Ed's hand came down to his lover's cock, the general's hands spread his legs apart again: then, fingers found his entrance, circled there, pressed, pushed in – first one, then two, then three. Edward's head fell forward to rest on the general's shoulder, even as his hand slid up and down his lover's cock, graceless but honest. The fingers seemed to be deliberately delicate, slow, avoiding the spot inside of him where Edward wanted them most: they were just spreading him out, getting him ready without giving him any satisfaction.

The preparation went on significantly longer than Edward thought it should: even now, Roy was still teasing, still trying to drive him insane. 

“God, _please._ I'm ready. I'm so ready. Please just fuck me,” he said, his desperation evident in every dip and quaver of his voice.

Roy laughed, warm and rumbling. Never breaking his gaze from where his fingers invaded Ed's body, the general reached over to the side table to open the drawer in it, then, after just a moment of searching, pulled out a thick, leather strap, with a number of brass snap-buttons at the end. The blonde stared at the thing in desire and despair: he knew what Roy intended, knew that he needed it if he wanted to please his lover, but he wanted to come so badly.

“Since you ask so nicely,” he said, finally withdrawing his fingers, “I suppose I can do that for you. Kneel, straddling my lap.”

And Edward did. He knew what came next, but wouldn't move to do it – not until he was instructed to do so, no matter how much he wanted to end the torture already. All reason had abandoned him: all he could do was follow Roy's instructions and trust that he would get what he needed, trust that Roy would please him like he needed to be pleased.

Then, the man's hands came out and looped the leather around the base of his cock, tightening it until it it dug into him, until it almost hurt, then snapped it closed. Ed squeezed his eyes shut – he wouldn't be able to come like this, that was the point. Maybe he would get to enjoy this awful pleasure for longer, but fuck, he wanted to finish. That didn't matter, though: the general didn't want him to – not yet.

“Good,” Roy said, petting Edward's hair: he leaned into it, savoring. “Now, position yourself.” One of Ed's fumbling hands did so, his other tight on his lover's shoulder. “Now, let yourself go. Fuck yourself on my cock.”

Edward's next breath was harsh, released as a whimper.

“Oh god, yes,” he said, as he let himself slide down the length of Roy's erection until it was buried there, filling him as he was meant to be filled. “Mm, _fuck,_ thank you –”

His words caught, choked, in his throat as the head of Roy's cock hit his prostate: a sob of relief replaced any coherent thought as the pleasure shot through him, blossoming out from that spot into the rest of his body. With his arms wrapped around Roy's neck, Ed's cock slid up and down the hard ridges of his lover's stomach as he did as ordered, muscles bunching and releasing as he pushed himself up and down, as he stoked his own pleasure. Judging by the half-lidded expression of lust and the flush on his lover's face, the general wasn't exactly unaffected, either.

A slight change to the angle of his motion made the head of Roy's cock hit his prostate with every thrust, the pleasure blinding, rhythmic, relentless – if he thought he had been close before it was nothing compared to now – every movement drew a soft whimper from him as it built, built, need and pleasure swelling impossibly against the choking string, his nipples hard as hell and sensitive, even to the light puffs of air.

Then, as the head of the cock stimulated him again, without any warning, the choking pressure of the leather strap was gone and Edward was _coming,_ the orgasm cresting into stars behind his eyes and carrying him along as his lips parted in half a moan, half a scream. His body tensed against the onslaught of pleasure – and he spilled his seed in one burst, two, three, all over his lover's perfect stomach. His body pulsed, thrusting against Roy's hard stomach in the aftershocks.

Before Ed had even properly finished, the general had him on his back, his legs up in the air over Roy's shoulders, and he started to fuck the younger man like he had finally reached the edge of his patience. The look in his eye was ragged, his mouth hanging open, forehead glistening with sweat as his body moved in a frenzy, slamming himself into the younger man, pounding, until Ed could see his lover's pulse in the hollow of his neck and he looked half-crazed with pleasure – 

And then, Edward had the satisfaction of hearing his lover's voice as he came: a deep, shuddering moan that never stopped being wonderful, no matter how many times he heard it. Roy's cock spilled itself inside of him, pulsing, and he gave another thrust, then another, and another – and then he was done.

He pulled out and rolled off of Ed onto his back, leaving one arm around the younger man's neck.

“Mm,” said Roy, tracing the edge of Ed's collarbone with a finger.

“Mm,” agreed Edward, letting himself enjoy the fond contact. They sat there, in silence, for a moment.

“You were fucking hot tonight,” said Roy, pressing lips to the edge of the blonde's shoulder. Ed laughed.

“You're also drunk. 'M pretty sure anything with legs would have turned you on at that point.”

“I'm not sure if I'm more insulted for myself, or for you,” Roy replied, sounding amused. “That isn't so. Those things you were saying – you were driving me crazy.” _That's **my** line,_ thought Edward, but didn't say it. “Desperation is a good look on you.”

Ed blushed and looked away.

“You – you weren't so bad yourself,” he said, and immediately slapped himself mentally for being so useless with words. “I mean, you were great. Fuck. You know what I mean. Do I really have to say it?”

Roy laughed, and turned on his side to throw his other arm across Ed's stomach.

“No, you don't. You already told me everything I needed to know tonight, when you were naked and needy and begging for my cock.”

“Oh. Well, that's good,” he said, and felt Roy press a smile into the skin of his shoulder.

*

The meal of veal cutlets and creamed asparagus that Meredith had spent so long preparing was interrupted by a ring to the front doorbell. Weimar begged her forgiveness to be excused for a moment as he went to see who it was: she understood, of course, and waved him away with a little smile.

Upon arrival at the great carved oak panels that served them as doors, he saw a large envelope that someone had slid through the crack under their door. He picked it up: on the front, scrawled in a hasty pen, was a telephone number. He opened the top ungracefully, tearing it down the sides, but he didn't mind: he wouldn't be keeping the envelope for long. The first thing he pulled out was a sheet of paper, with the words on it:

_You want me to publish these, or no?_

His brow wrinkled: why on earth wouldn't he want Harriet to publish anything he had found on Mustang? The Flame Alchemist had been shaken, Weimar could see it: his political influence was lessening, until he was struggling just to keep his footing.

He slid a hand into the envelope, and out again with what felt like a photograph.

And then, he knew why Harriet had asked. He colored behind his trimmed beard, even as most of his blood rushed between his legs, a reaction both to the contents of the photograph and to the surprise of seeing it.

Because the picture showed Mustang with a very naked Fullmetal on his lap, bodies connected, heads thrown back in sinful bliss. If he looked closely, he could just barely see the place where Mustang entered the younger man.

He pulled out the next photo: how many of them had Harriet taken? The envelope was thick and heavy in his hand. The next photograph showed Fullmetal, a few inches higher on Mustang's erection, as if he were sliding up and down on it.

His breathing grew shallow and he had to wipe away the sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead. His stomach churned at the sheer _wrongness_ of it, at the sight of Fullmetal and Mustang so blatantly, unashamedly, engaging in such sin. He shoved the photos back in the envelope, as if God couldn't see him if he put them away fast enough, and called out to his wife, still in the dining room:

“Meredith, I have some business to attend to for just a moment. I will probably be ten minutes, perhaps a bit more. Is that alright?”

“When have I ever said no?” he heard her ask, and so he thanked her and swept up the staircase to the bedroom they shared, automail creaking in protest against the speed. He picked up his telephone, and called the number on the front of the envelope.

“Yes,” he said, to the man who answered, “Publish them. Publish as many as your newspaper can print. The son of a bitch can't charm or fast-talk his way out of this one,” he said, to a laugh and acknowledgment from the man on the other side of the phone. A few more words were exchanged, then they both hung up, leaving Mikhael Weimar with an envelope, tempting and thick as the hardness between his legs.

He went to his armoire and stood in front of it, his vision clouding, his pulse racing. He opened both doors at once, and, pushing his way past coats and dresses on metal hangers, slid a finger down into a deep chip in the back right corner of the board that made up the floor of the wardrobe. With the correct application of pressure, the panel came up and off in his hands, revealing a compartment of about four inches deep that spanned the whole base.

He rifled past the memories – the love letters that he had never sent, the epaulette with three stars that had been entrusted to him – to find a tome of a book with a blank leather cover. He opened it, turned past photograph upon photograph that he had pasted there: some showed men's smiling faces, but mostly they displayed naked bodies: this one laid out seductively on rumpled sheets, that one on a beach, another in a bath, this one lying on a table with his legs spread to leave everything bare to the camera.

None of them showed two men together.

He finally reached a blank page, and pulled out the whole packet of photographs, and took the bottle of glue from the wardrobe.

Harriet – or whoever had been his lackey for this mission – had been thorough: the stack was perhaps fifty photos deep. The first one showed the two men, fully clothed, kissing, with Fullmetal on Mustang's lap. He pasted it into the next spot in his book. The next photograph showed Fullmetal, getting to his knees; then the next, pulling Mustang's length out of his pants; then with his mouth on the thing, the general's jaw slack and his forehead furrowed in what looked like pain but could only be pleasure. Mikhael had heard of such things before, and his body _wanted_ – sharply, intensely, without his permission.

The pressure between his legs was becoming almost unbearable.

He pasted them all into the book, in order, from the first kiss through the collaring, through the spanking – Fullmetal looked like he had been writhing, like he had been perhaps about to cry – through their inevitable finish, with Fullmetal on his back, covered in his own seed, and Mustang's eyes squeezed shut as he came inside of the younger man.

Younger, yes: so much younger as to be obscene, but some part of Weimar could see the appeal. Even in these imperfectly focused photographs, the lithe, hard body which Fullmetal had been granted was entirely evident. Yes, with his head thrown back in sinful bliss, hair wild and bare body slick with sweat on Mustang's lap, he was beautiful.

His hands shook as he put the last picture in. A swell of illness rose to his throat: he slammed the book shut, hoping to still the feeling before it overwhelmed him.

There was only one remedy for this disease. Could he make it downstairs to Meredith before his lower regions lost their interest? She would take what she could get, and wouldn't ask questions.

But the very thought of conjugal activities with his wife began to make him soften again, and he cursed the luck that had given him this affliction. 

He shoved the photo book back into the armoire along with the glue, set the false bottom back where it belonged, and thought of his marital duties until his erection was gone, though deep frustrations of many kinds replaced it.

But what did such minor grievances matter, in the end? He had resisted his unnatural urges for another day, and for that, God would commend him. He went back downstairs to the dining room, and smiled at his wife, who put her book away as he entered. Pulling his chair out, he sat down, and took a swallow of his water.

“Was it good news, or bad?” Meredith asked, blue eyes wide with concern.

“Good news,” said General Weimar, his grin a baring of teeth. “I think I've pinned Mustang for sure, this time.”

*

The next morning, by some act of god, Edward made it downstairs earlier than his lover: perhaps the events of the day would have gone differently if he hadn't, but perhaps such simple chance defines all lives, in ways both large and small. Walking into the front yard to retrieve the morning's deliveries – usually, mail, a carton containing two bottles of milk, and two newspapers – he found the thing sitting there on the porch, as quiet and immobile as such a thing could be.

Ed swallowed his rage, wouldn't let it out, but it boiled in him and turned his stomach to acid.

He took the whole thing and actually ripped it to shreds in Roy's fireplace: something about the physical act of tearing through the whole thick sheaf of papers at once gave him a certain satisfaction. Just to be sure, he transmuted it into ashes there, so it was as if it had never been. There was no need for Roy to see it before he absolutely had to. The man would find out eventually, but until then, Edward could leave him what peace remained in his quiet morning.

The carton of milk he set on the kitchen table along with the second newspaper and the mail – advertisement, advertisement, letter, response to an appointment request, a mailed interview form from the Star Telegraph (he gave it the same treatment as he had the first newspaper) – then walked over to the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey, Roy?” he called up, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “I need to head back to my place for some clean clothes before going to the lab. I’ll see you sometime later?”

“What, not staying for breakfast this morning?” came Roy’s voice, from what Ed guessed by the echoes was the upstairs bathroom. “You're in a hurry. At least let me come say goodbye properly,” he said, and Edward suddenly got an eyeful of temptation as Roy appeared, naked, at the top of the stairs. He resisted both of his twin urges: to go join his lover in the shower, to have some fantastic sex, to forget about the newspaper and whatever else was going on outside; and its mirror impulse, to tell Roy to put some clothes on so he wouldn't have to fight the first urge anymore.

They met halfway on the stairs, the steps accentuating their height difference in a way that once might have made Edward angry but now didn't seem to matter in the least. They kissed, warm and chaste, and wrapped their arms around each other.

“How's the hangover?” Ed asked, after a moment. “You doin okay?”

“I'm not exactly about to go run a marathon,” he said, with some amusement, “but mostly I'm fine. It's certainly not the worst I've ever had.” What had the worst one been like? Ed had never had a hangover, but they didn't seem pleasant.

“That's good.” He paused. “Okay. Well, I've gotta get going. So g’bye,” Ed murmured into Roy’s bare chest, not allowing himself to lick the sweat off of his lover’s skin. “Have a good day at work.” Even as he said it, he knew that it was going to be impossible for either of them – but the other man didn't. Not yet.

“You too,” said Roy, genuinely. “Now get out of here, before I decide to have my wicked way with you here on the stairs.”

Despite his lover's joking tone, Ed had to fight the immediate rush of arousal that filled him at those words – but it wasn't nearly as strong as his rage, so he stayed steady.

“Yeah. I’ll see you later. I'm prob’ly staying at my house tonight, you can come by for dinner if you want.” 

“Tonight may be a late work night, with everything that's going on and my conversation with the Ambassador, but I’ll do my best.”

“'Kay,” said Edward, pulling away from Roy’s embrace. “See ya,” he said, then hopped down the stairs to where his work bag lay sitting by the door.

“Goodbye,” Roy replied, to which Ed responded with a wave, backwards, over his shoulder.

Having the immense space of the whole city around him felt somehow liberating, free from the confines of stone walls, free to run if he wanted, to run away or run forward. The fury bubbling up in his chest was twice as frustrating simply because he had no direction for it, nothing in front of him that he could destroy and no one at whom he could scream until he felt better.

About a block away from Roy's house, he gave in to his urge to swing a savage kick into a lamppost: the metal gave way under his foot with a satisfying clang, and his automail foot left a significant dent where it had been. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught two passers-by staring at him in horror.

“What the hell are you looking at?” he snarled, whirling to face them. They took the hint and turned to scurry away, like rats.

Maybe they had seen the article, and were watching him with some sick, horrified fascination.

Maybe they hadn't, and had just seen some crazy fuck kicking the shit out of a lamppost. 

Maybe he had been hallucinating the whole thing – without the evidence there in front of him, who was to say?

But that was a stupid game to play. He knew what he had seen. The bile collected, burning, in his throat. Someone was going to have to fucking pay for this.

It had been almost surreal, like a nightmare. The content didn't register in Ed's brain for a good thirty seconds longer than it should have taken because it was so absolutely fucking unbelievable: right there on the front page of the Central Times, sitting on Roy's goddamn porch, had been a photograph of Roy and Ed fucking, from the night before. There, for all the world to see, one sat naked and the other fully clothed, Ed straddling his lover's lap on Roy’s couch, the nature of their congress unavoidably apparent despite the added blur. It covered all of the important bits, presumably so as not to offend delicate sensibilities.

If it hadn't been so horrifying, it almost would have been funny: those people's priorities were unbelievably fucked-up. They'd publish illicit pornography in their paper, but they 'd cover it up, just to make sure they didn't offend anybody.

The mystery of how the reporter had gotten those photographs had been solved when Ed had noted what looked like the sides of Roy’s curtains on the edges of the picture: apparently the man hadn’t drawn the drapes fully enough to be able to expect privacy in his own goddamn house. Worse yet, the collar was clearly visible on Ed’s neck, a private gift turned to a mark of shame.

And on page four, where the article continued after cutting off at the end of the first page, there had been more pictures, just as damning as the first. Edward, on his knees, sucking Roy off – Edward over Roy’s lap, the man’s hand drawn back, about to strike him – Edward straddling the other man’s legs while both men had been fully clothed. 

The headline: _GENERAL CAUGHT WITH MALE SUBORDINATE!_ The subtitle: _PROOF OF GENERAL MUSTANG'S SORDID AFFAIR WITH THE FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST!_ By the end of the article, the reader was to be left with the impression that Mustang had raped Edward regularly for his whole time in the military, starting at the age of twelve and continuing on to the present day (though the writer didn’t even bother to specify that Ed wasn’t in the military anymore) – and if that weren't bad enough, it also suggested in imprecise language that he might have abused even more children or subordinates. 

Alternately, it implied that Edward might have actually been to blame for such events: that Mustang had actually been the victimized party, and that Edward had used his looks and his masterful skills at seduction to wrap the Flame Alchemist and a number of other important military figures around his little finger. In this retelling, he owed his rank as much to his ability to spread his legs as to any actual talent.

The dual narrative was the most confusing and irritating part: how could he be victim and whore at the same time?

The dent in the lamppost actually improved it, Ed decided, so he neglected to transmute it away, instead moving on to the next lamp and kicking a dent in it, too.

Part of him, the part that had never quite gotten used to staying in one place, told him that he should just get on a train and take off to the north or something, but he knew how well that had worked out last time, when he had up and left Roy without so much as a word of warning. Besides, he had promised not to do it again.

And in any case, Edward Elric didn’t run away, he ran _forward._

“Forward” meant having a plan. “Forward” meant working towards achieving that plan, every day, with every breath. Right then, he decided immediately, “forward” meant figuring out just who this Guy Harriet motherfucker was, where he lived, and going down to his house so they could have a nice little chat. 

Edward burst into his own house just over half an hour later, the sound of the door slamming into the wall satisfying in the same way that punching the lampposts had been. Startled, Al looked over from where he was making coffee in the kitchen.

“Alphonse,” Ed said, darkly. “Tell me where he lives.”

“Where who lives?” asked Al, but his innocent face couldn’t fool Ed.

“Come on, Al, don’t play stupid with me. I know you’ve seen the papers.”

Al’s face twisted up then, like he couldn’t hold his emotion in anymore. His poker face had been bad even when he had been made entirely of metal, and it had only gotten worse since then.

“I’m sorry, Brother. I did see it. It’s horrible,” he said, sounding like it hurt him as much as it did Ed. It probably did. Just one more reason he needed to talk to Guy Harriet.

“Yeah, it fucking is. I thought people had the right to fuck whoever they want in private, and to do it however the fuck they want,” he snapped, and felt bad immediately: Al wasn't the intended target of his anger. He stomped over into the kitchen, looking at the floor and feeling the strain of keeping all of his emotion in. “Isn’t it illegal to take photographs through somebody’s window without their permission? Actually, I don't even care whether it is or not: if it's not, it oughta be, and in any case it's just _wrong._ I have to talk to this fucker, Al.”

Al frowned. Even he knew that this wasn’t the sort of situation you could just ignore.

“Yes, it is illegal, and horrible, and I'm sorry. I can’t tell you where Guy Harriet lives, though. I can tell you that our research has turned up suggestions that he’s connected to General Weimar.” Ed watched his brother blankly. The name rung no bells. After a moment of the silence, Al realized what the issue was, and continued: “That’s right, you don’t know anything about politics. and General Mikhael Weimar was just a brigadier general when you were in the military. Well, to put it one way, he is not one of General Mustang’s supporters. He would be happy to see General Mustang and his political ideas go down in flames and not get up again.”

Edward darkened, and Al put out a cautioning hand.

“But that’s not an invitation to go punch General Weimar, either. Punching is not the answer to every question.”

“It sure as hell oughta be!” Edward took a deep breath, thought about it for a moment. “Alright, Mustang can deal with Weimar or what the fuck ever. I’m going to go find this jackass who takes photos through private windows and then publishes them in public newspapers and calls _them_ perverts and I'm gonna transmute him into shoe leather.” A pause: Al watched him, brow furrowed in concern or pity. Ed almost bristled again – he didn't need anybody's pity.

“I’m not going to tell you where he lives, Brother. I'm not going to imply that I condone this.”

“But you know.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, if you won’t tell me, I’ll go to the Central Times headquarters and transmute all of their printing presses into statuary.”

“No! Edward, don’t do that. That’s going to get you and everybody else in so much trouble.”

“Then let me threaten him in private. What he’s doing is just wrong.”

“Not everybody has the same ideas about right and wrong as you, Brother. Most people have more of a concept of a moral grey area.”

“You think taking pictures of me and Roy fucking in his house is a moral grey area?!”

“No, I think it’s wrong,” Al said, his face stone and his words decisive. “But most people would also consider you attacking him for his crimes to be morally ambiguous at best, if not outright wrong.”

“I never said I was gonna attack him,” he muttered, crossing his arms. “I was joking about the shoe leather. Mostly,” he added, just for the sake of honesty. “I told you, I'm gonna go talk to him.”

Al frowned and crossed his arms too, his brow furrowed – Ed knew exactly what was going on in his mind. He knew his brother wasn't happy with this, but his anger fueled the part of him that just didn't give a damn. 

“'Talk' to him being code for 'interfere with the freedom of the press' at best, and 'commit assault' at worst. Promise me, at least, that you’re not going to go to the Central Times headquarters and make a scene there. I can't even tell you how awful that would be.”

“No can do,” said Edward, more than a bit vindictively, “not unless you tell me where this one bastard lives.”

Al sighed, running a hand through his hair: that look on his brother's face was Ed's fault, he knew, but he wasn't about to change his mind.

“Fine,” said Al, tiredly. “The address is in my notes. I'm pretty sure he's at home right now, because he stayed up all night writing the story, but if he's the kind of person I think he is, he'll probably be going back to the Central Times headquarters pretty soon to take care of more stuff. If you want to make sure you get him, you should probably catch a cab, or run really fast.”

“Thanks, Al,” said Edward, taking a deep breath. The man was already going back to do more damage? Had he not hurt enough people for one day? “I owe you one.” He paused. “I owe you a million,” he said, flashing his little brother a quick smile, gone as quickly.

“You bet your life you do. Don’t do anything _too_ stupid,” Al said, and Ed couldn’t tell if it was exasperated or fond.

“Funny, Mustang told me the same thing the other day,” the blonde grumbled, half amused. He should get those two out of the same city. They were dangerous enough separately. “You know, you two should definitely stop hangin' around each other. You're getting to be too similar in a lot of ways that are really weird to me.” And inconvenient, to boot.

There was a short laugh in response. A bit of his hair had fallen out of place, and he tucked it back. Then, half to himself, he said:

“Are we?” A pause. “I really hope I don’t regret this.”

Ed's reaction was automatic, practiced:

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Al. It’s not your problem.”

Holding up the smile the younger man gave him proved to be too much effort: the expression sagged, drawing out the shadows around his eyes. Funny how everybody involved with the whole damn situation looked ten years older. Ed wondered what he would see if he looked in a mirror.

“Idiot,” Alphonse said, sadly. “We've been over this. I love you. Of course it's my problem.”

The words weren't any easier to hear the second time. He stepped forward to ruffle his brother's hair, gave the other a grin, then said:

“Really, don't worry. I'll be back before you know it.”

“You'd better be,” said Al, and after a brief pause, stepped forward to give his brother a quick hug – awkward, adorable, like he had forgotten how. Ed squeezed back, for just that second, and gave the other a wave as he turned to run – away, and _forward_.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eep.
> 
> ...
> 
> Your comments get my ass in gear. If you would tell me what you thought, I would be eternally grateful! <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody ever listen to me when I say when I'm going to post, dammit. Two days earlier than two weeks, and a day earlier than promised. I was just too excited.

**Chapter 6**

*

Once again, Roy found out about the article at work, though mercifully he did so from Hawkeye rather than from hallway gossip or by random chance. As he entered the outer office, where Havoc and Fuery and the rest worked at their desks, he saw her looking at him – pointed, immediate. Not a word had to pass between them for him to know that she needed to speak to him. Striding over to his personal office, he kept the silence and she followed him, shutting the door behind him. He sat down at his desk, and she stepped over to stand in front of it. 

“What is it, Major?” he asked without prelude, lacing his fingers together on the wood.

“Sir,” she said, her face carefully blank. “Have you seen the papers?” Roy's heart sank.

“How I have grown to hate those words,” Roy said, trying to keep his voice light. “What nonsense are they spouting this time?”

“Nothing new, exactly,” she murmured. “Except that they have a collection of photographs. Inappropriate photographs,” she added, and his stomach turned.

“Photographs?” he asked, voice hardening. 

“Taken through your window, it seems, sir.”

“Show me,” he said, anger hitting him with even more force than the shock had.

Hawkeye paused, watching him, considering. After a moment, she said:

“In the top left drawer of your desk.”

Roy slammed the drawer open, yanking out the folded newspaper and spreading it in front of him.

Sure enough, there on the front page, three quarters of it set above the center fold, Roy could see himself and Edward, naked on his chair as they had been the night before, joined together in mutual bliss. At the bottom of the article he noted a little italicized addition: Continued on page four, it read, as if the first page wasn't enough. He slammed the paper open to the page in question and stared at what he saw there.

The grim set of his mouth betrayed everything he felt, his mind's disbelief at what his eyes told him must be true. He held the paper up off of the table, still staring – so many photographs of what had been such a private moment, taken without permission and published for the world to gawk at.

He slid a glove from his breast pocket onto his right hand, then snapped. The paper glowed orange at a corner, and then after a flickering moment, lay as ash on his table.

“Why would someone do this?” he asked, his voice tight, crushing together his many emotions into one.

“To hurt you,” she said, quietly. “To hurt your team’s faith in you. To hurt the country’s faith in you. For money, and a politician’s support.”

Roy turned his eyes on her again, and for the first time wondered what she thought of the whole situation. What did she think of seeing photographs of him in the newspapers, of hearing all of these things about him that were better left unspoken? Did she think him sick and twisted? Was she hurt, jealous?

To Roy Mustang, the most important living people were his mother, Edward Elric, and Riza Hawkeye, in some undefined order. As much as Edward suited him, as much as he enjoyed the younger man's company, as much as Ed made him happy, Hawkeye suited him just as much in another way. She made him a better man, kept him driven and focused, strengthened the parts of him that were weak and protected him from all comers. Friends and acquaintances had often wondered when the two were going to start a romantic relationship, but somehow, between her professionalism, his multitudes of dalliances, and the inconvenience of fraternization rules, such a thing had just never happened. Having her as a woman was so much less important than having her as a soldier that he had never even tried.

As these thoughts flashed through his mind, it occurred to him with a mixture of amusement and discomfort that Hawkeye probably would not take well to being dominated in bed. She might be entirely disgusted by the thought of the kind of activities Roy enjoyed: on the slim chance that she wasn't, he suspected that she might possibly prefer their roles the other way around.

That being said, over the past several months a long-ignored question had begun to surface and resurface in the stream of his thoughts: how did she feel about him? Had she been hurt when he had begun a relationship with Edward? Had she wished it it had been her, instead? And now, another question arose: was she happy that she had never tried anything now that his perverted tendencies were on display? Did she find his kinks as base and disgusting as the rest of the country?

Instead of any of those things, after a moment he asked:

“ _Is_ your faith in me hurt?” He met her eyes and locked them there, together.

“No,” she replied, immediately, automatically: that immediate confidence warmed Roy through.

“You aren’t disgusted by what you see here? By what you’ve read?”

She shook her head.

“What you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business. What you do in the privacy of your office when the door is closed is a bit more of a grey area,” she said, with a soft upward crook of her mouth. Roy almost gave a nervous laugh at that, but the situation was too serious. Of course she knew he had been having sex in his office. Why wouldn’t she? The woman's omniscience was well-known and feared throughout the department.

“Our team hasn’t been shaken. We’re still behind you, one hundred percent. However, I think you can expect a lot of teasing, once this has all blown over,” she said, amused. “And it will blow over,” she added.

Roy tried to smile back: the anger churning in his stomach made happiness difficult, but gratitude – that he could manage.

“Thank you, Major. Your support means the world to me. I don't know how I'd manage without you.”

“You wouldn't, sir,” she said, firmly. “Now I would appreciate it if you would sweep all of that ash off of your desk and get to work. You have quite a pile of paperwork to go through and many important decisions to make before your meeting with the ambassador, so the sooner you get started, the better.”

Roy groaned theatrically as he slipped off his flame glove and used one bare hand to brush the pile of soot into the other hand before depositing it in the nearby trash bin.

“Come on, Major. You can't even give a man a break for ten minutes after his life's been violently spun about?”

She gave him an appraising look, and thought for a moment.

“I'll send Fuery to get coffee. I'll check in on you after he's delivered it. If you're not working by then...”

She let the end of that sentence hang, unspoken, in the air. She was the kind of woman who didn't even need to speak her threats aloud.

*

The crowds of people on Carell Boulevard parted to led Edward through as he careened down the street, stare focused, feet unflagging. They glanced at him, then looked away, without the energy to care about some other human's troubles. No-one recognized him: to careless eyes he was just some racing madman, not the social pariah from the newspapers nor the Hero of the People, which was all for the best. He didn't know what he would have done if he had been recognized.

By the time he arrived at Guy Harriet's house, his forehead was slick with sweat: even at the peak of his physical fitness he would have found a twenty-minute sprint tiring, and he was no longer at his very best. Despite the coolness of the day, he felt himself beginning to warm uncomfortably: the heat of his exertion stayed trapped below his many layers of clothing, compounding itself. His automail, hidden below the brown leather of his long jacket, had begun to overheat, straining the skin at the port. But he wouldn't slow down. He was not in the mood to wait.

The house itself was unremarkable, just a single-story building in a style that had gone out of fashion twenty years ago, one of a neverending row of a bunch of houses that, with the exception of slight variations in color or texture, all looked exactly the same. It had a little yard out in front: quick inspection showed no gate or walkaround to a back yard. Edward grunted. A backyard would have been more private, convenient location for this kind of confrontation. That option taken away from him, he slid to a stop on the stone of the man's entryway. A heavy lions-head knocker adorned the wood of his door – _Ritzy,_ he thought to himself with some derision as he pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head to hide his distinctive hair. The man must have been a pretentious asshole.

As he stood before the door, out of nowhere a bout of nerves attacked him: his stomach swam, noticeable even through his anger, and his adrenaline spiked. He set his warm hand flat out on the door to support himself through this wave of dizziness. Fuck, what had brought this on? 

Some inexplicable instinct told him that something was off. He didn't know what it was, but it was something.

_Am I making a really bad decision?_ That instinctual part of his brain seemed to think so, and the realization shook him. Edward took a deep breath and a step back, wondering if maybe he should think this through better, find some other way, at least do this when his emotions weren't so turbulent – 

And then he lost any further choice in the matter, because the door opened in front of him, leaving him with no defense.

The man standing there was not what Edward had expected. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with a too-long nose and an early balding patch that Ed just caught a glimpse of before the man covered it with a bowling cap. He probably thought himself handsome, but he had a sniveling, untrustworthy face. He dressed sharply, at least, Edward had to give him that.

Guy Harriet stared at him, blank, for a moment, and Edward froze, the man's mirror. He didn't know what he had planned to do, or at least couldn't remember – now that he was here, in front of the man, that nervousness in his belly shackled his feet to the ground and his mouth shut.

“Can I help you?” the man asked, neutrally polite. He adjusted the bowler cap on his head, then straightened his back. “I'm sorry, did we have an appointment? I don't recall, but things have been so busy over the past couple of days. I was about to go into work, so unless it's urgent, might you wait?”

“ _No,_ I'm not gonna wait,” said Edward, not quite summoning up the fury he had intended, but nevertheless managing a hardness that seemed to startle the other man. He took a breath and hunched his shoulders. “You and I have business.”

“What manner of business?” he asked, then paused: he looked Edward up and down, searched the man's face under the hood, and then his eyes narrowed, practically glinting. He grinned, and the expression twisted his face, darkened it. Then, delighted, he said:

“Oh, I see. You're General Mustang's little whore, aren't you.” 

Edward's heart almost stopped. He surged forward, slammed the man against his front door and pinned him there by the collar with his automail hand, savoring the look of shock on the man's face. There was no fear there – yet.

“What did you say?” he growled, increasing the pressure on the man's neck. “What did you call me, you cowardly sneaking spineless sonova bitch?” The reporter tried to struggle, but it was useless: even Ed's flesh arm was twice as strong as either of Harriet's. The alchemist didn't even pause in his tirade. “You have the fucking _gall_ to run around taking photographs through other people's windows of shit they do in private, publish them for the world to see, make money off of it, then write an article calling _me_ a pervert? You have _no_ right.”

The man had begun to look afraid, now: Ed bared his teeth in a snarl. His voice of caution and moderation had begun to disappear, drowning under the force of his anger.

“I do have a right,” the man began, his voice hoarse, forced through the pressure from Ed's fist, “and a sacred duty as a journalist.” Ed's eyes narrowed, his emotions catching up even as his brain stayed stuck on the first sentence. “And Amestris has a right to know what its leaders are doing, to know what kind of men they are. Do they want a pervert and a rapist for a general? For a Fuhrer? I doubt it. Better that they know beforehand than find out when it's too late to do anything about it.”

Edward's vision flashed red, and before he knew what was happening, the ridge of his knuckles collided with the journalist's cheekbone with a cathartic crunch. Guy Harriet stumbled to the side, eyes wide, looking even more surprised by the sudden meeting of bones than Ed had been. The alchemist hadn't meant to let his fist fly just then, but he couldn't say that he regretted it.

“You're right, they do have a right to know what kind of men their leaders are. And thanks to you, they have no _fucking_ idea who Roy Mustang is. He's a _great_ man.” 

Why had he confronted the man on his front lawn? That had been the first of many bad ideas. Around them, heads had begun to peek out of windows, and people were stopping on the street to watch, out of curiosity or their own voyeuristic tendencies. Ed let go of the reporter's collar to shove the man backward, childishly satisfied by the man's quick stumble. Harriet righted himself, though, and put one hand up to his cheek to feel the damage, then spat onto the grass, probably to check for blood in his mouth. There might have been a pale flash of red on the grass, but it wasn't significant. 

Collecting himself, the reporter shoved his hands in his pockets. His next words bit.

“It's not surprising that you'd say that. After all, you've been his little puppet since you were twelve – and his personal sex toy, if my sources are to be believed,” he said, his voice sharp, pointed, intended to cut Edward through and succeeding. There was no reason for that comment, no possible motivation other than cruelty, a vindictive pleasure in the pain of another.

“I'm not anybody's _anything!_ ” Ed snarled, digging his fingers into his palms. “I go my own way. _I_ decided to be with Mustang – once I was _significantly past the age of consent_ – and _I_ decided to support him politically, and the two were _not_ connected. Also, _fuck_ your sources, they're either made up or they're _liars._ And speaking of little puppets, let's talk about General Weimar,” Edward said, the last words pointed, mocking. “I know you journalists are sleazy bastards, but I thought at least that you had _some_ standards. We know about the money you've been getting from the General on the sly.” He had made that part up, but by the way the man's eyes widened, Ed's guess had been right on the mark. “How much was your integrity worth, huh? How much does he pay you to be his bitch? Does he _make_ you get up in the morning and ruin other people's lives, or is that just something you do because you think it's fun, and he pays you just as a little extra bonus?”

The man gaped, and Ed could feel the astonished stares of their audience on the street. Edward spun around to face them. A few drew back at the look on his face, but he couldn't say he cared.

“Get the hell out of here, this is private business! I'm not a goddamn circus act.”

“They're not going to go away,” said Harriet, from behind him. “If there's one thing I know, it's that the public loves to watch train wrecks, Elric. Schadenfreude, as they call it. People will talk about this. You can't stop them. Some of them might even recognize you, and put two and two together. You're really quite famous, you know.”

Edward turned on the man, mouth open in a snarl. Harriet thought this had moved back onto his turf again. His goddamn mistake. 

“You ain't gonna scare me with that kind of talk. I don't give a shit what people think about me.”

“Clearly you do care what people think, or you wouldn't be behaving like this over one little newspaper article.”

“You son of a bitch. _Anybody_ would care about this.”

“If you have nothing to hide, if none of the things I've written about are true, then why are you so frazzled? I must have hit a nerve, hm? Or are you just ashamed of yourself? Is that the problem?”

The labor of Edward's chest grew tighter, heavier, with every word the other man said. Each syllable froze him further to the ground.

“Are you ashamed that you like men? That you like it when another man whips you senseless? Or,” he asked, giving a long pause for dramatic effect, “are you ashamed that you bought your way into your military position with your body? Tell me, did Mustang seduce you, or was it the other way around? Was he the first man you paid off like that, or were there others before him? I wouldn't be surprised, you really were a very _pretty_ child –”

And then Edward flew forward, his automail fist connecting with his opponent's stomach, then his other fist with the man's jaw, then his jaw again, and again – 

The sight of blood dripping out of the corner of Harriet's mouth stopped Ed short: he threw the other man to the ground with a heavy noise. When he slid to a stop, the alchemist noticed with dread that the man was smiling. The faint cry of sirens reached Ed's ears, growing louder by the second: one of their audience members must have made it to a telephone booth and called the police.

In that moment, he missed his silver pocket-watch for one of the first times since he had tossed it back onto Mustang's desk two years prior. If he had still been a state alchemist, he probably could have gone ahead and arrested the man for being a lying bastard and for his horrible invasion of privacy. Would it have been legal? Maybe not precisely, but State Alchemists could pretty much make their own laws. 

“Fuck you and your _theories._ You're pulling shit out of your ass and then making up 'anonymous sources' to prove it. We're onto you, bastard. We know who your real boss is, we know what you really want, and I'm telling you, give it up. Roy Mustang and I are none of your business. If you keep on with this, I swear to god you're gonna regret it worse next time.”

The man laughed, and sat up from the ground, and the flood of Edward's emotions turned from hot to cold in a heartbeat.

“We'll see who'll be regretting what, won't we?” he said, smiling: but the police sirens had drawn too close for Ed to challenge it. He knew he had to leave, and so – to his shame and against every battle-hardened instinct – he turned to run, feeling the pounding of every footstep deep within him.

*

At ten o'clock, Roy arrived at the Ambassador's hotel: strangely, she wasn't awaiting him in the lobby, so he asked the attendant at the front desk ring up to her room. There was no answer. After a second try, the man asked who he should tell her had called if she should wish to know. Upon hearing the general's reply, he gave Roy a quick look of – surprise? Maybe – and fished a note out from under his counter. 

“Ah, the lady told me to give this to one General Mustang, if he happened to come by,” the man said, beady, mouselike eyes watching him warily even as he extended the note. Roy strode forward and snatched the paper from the man's hand, giving the thing a hot glare as he read it.

_General Mustang,_ the note read, the last “g” smudged, as if she hadn't had time to let the ink dry properly, _I have been escorted to headquarters today by one General Batir. I asked him where you were, and he simply said that he would be in charge of my case from now on. I don't know why he has taken over for you, but I can guess, and none of my guesses are happy ones. In the event that no-one has bothered to inform you and you show up to the hotel looking for me this morning, I hope this manages to find its way into your hands. Good luck to you. If you need anything, just ask, and I will do everything in my (admittedly limited) power to help you. – Ambassador Elena Rosenthal_

One hand crumpled the paper as he spun and stormed outside, and the other hand snapped: the paper burned, left only as ash on the concrete. 

He should have known something like this would happen. Why would the senior staff decide to court-martial him, then let his life and duties continue on as normal? No, that would have been too kind. That would have presumed his innocence.

As frustrating and inconvenient as it might have been, he kept his mind focused on one aspect of it: he was absolutely certain that General Weimar was behind it all. This wasn't simply a personal issue – this was a political embargo, putting Mustang safely behind a little barricade of law so that he and his ideas were less threatening. 

Even if the tense meeting between Mustang and Weimar in the hallway a few days prior had never happened, after this revelation, Roy still would have guessed that the other generalwas behind it all. Out of all the men on the council, he was the man most dead-set opposed to Roy's political views in almost every arena – but specifically, and most importantly, with regards to Roy's position on the Ishballan survivors.

Funny how, even after all those years, for Roy, everything went back to Ishbal. He guessed that the same was probably true for the other man. 

Roy laid out the situation in his head as he walked, at least, the situation as he guessed it: if he was any judge – and he was – then Batir was Weimar's closest ally among the senior staff, though he doubted that Batir had anything to do with the newspaper articles. Grumman was in Roy's camp, and he was an older, more powerful ally than Batir, though also more ambitious. If the man thought that he could become Fuhrer by taking Roy down, he probably would, but the two generals were friends, after a fashion. He had been Roy's political mentor – and perhaps a bit of a co-conspirator – back in East City. More importantly, their political philosophies seemed to line up quite well, although Grumman was unlikely to make Amestris into a democracy should he be appointed Fuhrer.

Fuhrer Hakuro sat in the middle of his divided staff, not throwing his lot in with one or the other. Roy appreciated this relatively unbiased approach to rule, although it made the man into something of a wild card. The Fuhrer's vote was crucial in any disagreement – his opinion would not only break a tie between the generals, but sway the whole rest of the room.

So Roy came out on top when weighing their support among the other generals. However, so far as he had gathered, Weimar could count at least the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Transport and Development, and the Minister of Commerce as his men. On Mustang's side, there was only the Minister of Civilian Administration, though thankfully the Ministers of State and Justice seemed not to have picked alliances as of yet.

Though the delay and his own impotence grated at him, he had to keep focus. He wouldn't go down quietly, wouldn't just let this happen without fighting it. He refused to let himself despair, even for a moment.

The short walk and the cool breeze allowed him some time to collect himself, which was good: it wouldn't do to let either his subordinates or his enemies see just how much this had affected him. By ten twenty, he had arrived at the Fuhrer's office, and heard an invitation from behind the solid oak doors when he knocked.

Roy entered and shut the door behind him, then saluted, his heels clicking together, body held straight as a rod.

“Oh, General Mustang, what brings you to see me today?” Fuhrer Hakuro asked, though he had to have been playing ignorant: there was no way that any of the generals would do what they had done without informing the Fuhrer. He looked up from what was surely an important document. “At ease, Mustang.” 

Roy assumed the “at ease” position, his feet spread and his hands clasped behind his back.

“Sir, it has come to my attention that the Cretan ambassador has been removed from my care. This is unusual, and counterproductive, given that I am the head of foreign relations, and I have more knowledge of the issue at hand and the Cretans in general than anyone else on the staff. Besides, I am already a good week into negotiations, and in this delicate situation, starting her with a new diplomat is more or less the same as starting over. May I ask what your reasoning might have been?”

Hakuro sat up straighter in his chair, and put his pen back in the inkwell. His eyes were sharp above steepled fingers.

“I thought it best, given your situation right now, to keep you out of the public spotlight. After all, the courts have yet to decide if you are a criminal or not. The staff and I decided that it would be best to remove you from negotiations before you are convicted, rather than after.”

“With all due respect, sir, I haven't been convicted, and I won't be: I've done nothing wrong or illegal.”

Hakuro's expression grew dark then, and he said:

“I'm certain that the court will come to the proper decision. But regardless, the articles that keep coming out in the newspapers are frankly an embarrassment, Mustang.” The man opened a drawer, pulled something out, and tossed it onto the table so that it faced Roy. It was a copy of the newspaper from that day, with that photograph, damning enough even alone, on the front. 

Calm, cool, unruffled. Roy's face was a stone wall, and he allowed nothing in. He had been hurt far worse than this.

How would Edward be handling it? Would the people at his lab pull it out and wave it at him, laugh at him? Would they treat him differently? Was he getting into some kind of trouble, like he always did? Was he hurt, ashamed? After all, it was _him_ who was naked in that photograph, not Roy. 

“I can't have someone who is consistently embarrassing to the great institution of this military dealing with foreign relations.”

Roy's voice as he replied was even.

“Those photographs were taken illegally and the reporter is spouting illegal slander. I find him much more of an embarrassment to the country than I am.”

“It's not slander if it's true.”

“Correct. But again, with all due respect, Edward is no longer my subordinate, and he hasn't been a minor for two years. So, unless there are laws that I have never heard about which dictate the kind of sexual activity in which one can engage in the privacy of their own home, I have done nothing illegal. I don't see that who I choose to be with is any of the state's business.”

The man's hard look did not soften.

“Yes, so you have said, I hear – but your defense is as of yet unproven. You seem confident that your name will be cleared. I am as well,” said the Fuhrer, in a way that implied the opposite, “but until your name is officially cleared, you are under suspicion of criminal activity and have been temporarily relieved of your position in my council and as head of foreign affairs. You may continue to conduct the affairs of your own office as you see fit, but I recommend that you spend the majority of your time, now, collecting the evidence you will need in court.”

This news hit him like a cannon, but he had better control than to show it. He would never allow this man to see his weakness, not today or any day.

“I see,” said Roy, as if he were being delivered a mildly interesting tidbit of information. “If that is your command, sir, then I am happy to obey. But if I have not been relieved of my rank or position officially, then may I assume that my second-in-command will take my place on your council, as she would if I were traveling or indisposed?”

The Fuhrer thought for a moment, then responded:

“I think that is allowable. Major Hawkeye is of an unusually low rank to be allowed onto my council, but if it is only temporary, then I think it will do no harm,” the man said, eyes glittering. It certainly would be temporary, either way: win or lose, she would not have to play that part for long.

“Your graciousness does you credit, sir,” Roy said, saluting again.

“You're welcome, General. Now, if you have nothing else to say, you are dismissed.”

“Sir,” said Roy, and turned to let himself out.

*

“You were right, Al,” said Edward, on opening the door to their house. “I should never have gone. I – god, I fucked up. You were right.”

“I know,” said Al, though he said it sadly.

*

The knock on the Elrics' door came at about five o'clock. Edward was sitting in the living room, books piled up around him, sketching a transmutation circle on thick paper when he heard it. He jumped at the sound – he had been dreading that sound ever since he had returned from Harriet's house that morning: there was no way that Roy wouldn't hear about his escapade. For the length of the day, he had had little else to do but wait for that knock: he didn't think he could handle one more look of disgust or pity from his coworkers without turning on someone, and so he stayed at home, alone, where at least he couldn't get into any more trouble.

He sprung up to his feet to go open the door, out of courtesy, though he knew that Roy had a key and could get in on his own, if he wanted. He ignored the pool of cold nausea sitting in the pit of his stomach: was he the Fullmetal Alchemist or was he a coward? Steeling himself, he turned the knob.

“Hey,” he said, risking a glance up to the face of the man in front of him, then shooting his eyes back down to the ground again. 

He didn't want to see that cold look in Mustang's eye, that pale face frozen and immobile as it only was when something much worse was lurking just behind that mask. The man's stare burned on Ed's face, so he turned around and said:

“You coming inside? Better than standing on the doorstep.”

Edward heard footsteps behind him and the slam of his door.

“Edward,” Roy said, and that one word struck fear in Ed's heart. “Look at me.”

Turning around, he met the general's knifing stare, unflinching.

“I can't believe you would do something like that, Edward,” the man began, every syllable enunciated, every word detailed. “I knew you were stupid, but _this?_ ” he asked, his hands clenching into tight fists by his side. The ice in his voice affected Edward more than any amount of screaming ever could. “We talked about this. We agreed that you weren't going to see this man. We agreed that you were going to take the high road, that you were going to try to be a goddamn _adult_ for once. Instead, I go off to work, and what do I hear? You've assaulted a reporter, done damage to my cause that is perhaps irreparable, and now the fucking _police_ are looking for you, too.” His voice grew harsher, and Edward wasn't sure if that was better or worse than that cool, detached indifference. “They can't prove it was you – at least you had the sense to put your hood up to hide your hair – but they aren't stupid. The only reason they haven't come over to arrest you, I suspect, is because you are the Fullmetal Alchemist and he was just some reporter. Until they find hard proof or collect sufficient witness testimony, I suspect you are safe. But that doesn't mean you will stay that way.”

Some part of Ed wanted to snap back in anger, to give as good as he was getting, but he didn't. Really, he deserved it. 

“Edward, I don't know what I'm going to have to do to show you how damaging your little temper tantrum was. I honestly don't know. I thought you understood what you needed to do, but evidently I was very wrong,” the general said, icily. They stood, facing each other, Edward's head bent forward so he wouldn't have to meet the other man's eyes.

“I know,” he said, trying not to sound the way he felt. “I'm sorry. I was just – I was so mad, you know? I just wanted him to stop saying that kind of shit about you. It just – it's so wrong. So fuckin' wrong, and I wanted him to pay for what he'd done to you.”

Roy's face didn't soften at all.

“Admirable, but stupid. You're not a state alchemist anymore. You don't have carte blanche when it comes to the law. What happens if you get thrown in jail, Edward? What then? What do I do? Politically or personally.” He paused, collecting himself back into that focused blade. “You know this is going to be in the morning papers. How does 'General's Lover Assaults Investigating Journalist' sound as a title? How do you think the public will take this?” 

Ed's mouth moved without his permission, as it so often did.

“You would have attacked him too if you heard the shit he was saying.”

He must have sounded hurt, or disgusted, or _something,_ because Roy paused for a moment and examined him, considering.

“Perhaps, or perhaps not. But above all, I _would not have put myself in that situation._ ”

“I know,” he said, staring at his scuffed-up boots. “I'm sorry.”

“I wish that apologies would make this go away, but they won't, Fullmetal. What will you do if this is the last nail in my coffin, politically? Will you say you're sorry again if, in two weeks, you're in prison for assault and I'm there for child rape? Will you wave at me from across the hall?” he asked, with a nasty laugh.

Ed's gaze shot up, and he froze there, stunned, his mind working around something to say.

“But – I –”

“But _nothing,_ Fullmetal. I understand that you meant no harm to me, but if I can't trust you to stay out of trouble, what _can_ I trust you to do?” 

Those words hit home, just like they were meant to. 

“Roy – I'm sorry,” he said, reaching out for his lover's sleeve, but the man pulled it away.

“I'm not ready to hear apologies from you. Not yet,” he said, and for the first time Ed could hear the hurt in his voice. “I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust.” Roy took a step back. “I will call you when I'm ready to talk again – assuming you're not in jail by then. I will do my best to make sure that doesn't happen, but we both know what my influence is worth these days, don't we?” he said, his tone cutting.

And then, before Edward could think of anything to say, Roy turned on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.

His chaotic thoughts did not tame easily: he stared at the wood that separated him from his lover for a moment, trying to pull them into line, where he could take stock of them and move on. When he couldn't, he took two steps over to the couch and fell onto it. Unwilling to expend any effort on staying upright anymore, he slumped over to lie on his back, staring at the ceiling.

_Goddammit,_ he thought, simultaneously wishing that Al was there and glad that he wasn't, _you really managed to fuck everything up good this time, didn't you, Elric? Christ, he was calling you **Fullmetal** again, like he forgot you aren't a kid anymore._

He sat up and shook his head.

“So this is why people go drinking,” he said aloud, and made the kind of bad decision that Roy especially could not blame him for.

*

The full sound of laughter and the clack of billiard balls, interrupted periodically by the sounds of players hooting or cursing their bad luck, made a constant backdrop in the bar, a raucous white noise that bothered Edward not at all. In fact, he hardly noticed any of it: he was slumped over one of the tables, chin resting on the arms that were crossed in front of him, running a finger around the rim of his drink to hear the light, toned noise it made. Only his third glass of beer, and already he was beginning to feel slow, distant, maybe a bit numb.

_Now I get why people drink so much._ Even though that conversation was all he could think about – _broke my trust – so childish – **Fullmetal** –_ he felt somehow detached from it, like it had happened to somebody else, like that morning had been an entirely different lifetime. He could examine it dispassionately, academically, from all angles, because it wasn't his problem.

A voice beside him startled him out of his reverie.

“Yo,” he heard from far too close to him, and looked over to see who had interrupted him: to his mild surprise, Lieutenant Havoc stood next to him, his hand raised in casual greeting. “Didn't expect to see you here, Boss. Didn't know you were the drinking type.”

He sat himself down in the chair across from Ed without asking permission. Ed watched him from where he was huddled over the table, his cheek still pillowed on the back of his hand.

“I am tonight. What're you doing here, Lieutenant?”

“You can just call me Havoc. I'm off duty, and you're not military anymore, anyway.”

“Sure I will. Soon's you stop calling me 'boss.'”

Havoc laughed.

“Touché, kiddo. Anyway, I'm just here to scout some pretty ladies. It's been a pretty stressful couple of days.”

Ed righted his head just enough to be able to take another swallow of his beer.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” muttered Edward, twirling the cup around. Havoc winced.

“Sorry, that was probably pretty insensitive of me. I'm sure it's been way worse for you and the General than for anybody else.”

“Don't need to apologize. Shit's been fucked up for everybody.”

“Yeah, it has.” Havoc raised a hand to a pretty waitress, beckoning her over to the table to order a glass of whiskey, on the rocks. Edward wondered why you would want to put rocks in your whiskey, but didn't ask, because he had a feeling that Havoc would probably laugh at him. “Anyway,” he continued as the waitress left, “you doing okay, kid? I guess the General got pretty mad at you today, huh.”

“So you heard all about that,” said Edward, sitting up and leaning back in his chair, then putting his glass to his lips and draining it. When he finished, he slammed it down on the table again. “Dammit. Everybody knows?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” said Havoc, grinning. “You're the talk of the town, kid. Man, speculating about what your and the General's relationship must be like is the most entertaining thing we do all day. It's been a good time for months, and now it's ten times as much fun.”

“Don't you have jobs and shit to do?”

“Well, yeah, but we get bored and talk, too.”

Ed snorted and crossed his arms, tilted his chair back so it was standing on only two legs.

“Talk? _Gossip,_ you mean. Like little schoolgirls.”

The pretty waitress came back with Havoc's drink, which had no rocks in it, to Edward's disappointment. The older man told her to bring around something for Ed – something stronger than beer – and to put it on his tab. Ed didn't protest.

Havoc grinned across the table.

“Call it what you wanna call it, I guess. We were all surprised this summer when we heard that you and the General were doin' it.” Ed couldn't help but wince at the phrase. “We had no idea that either of you guys were, you know, into dudes. Thought General Mustang loved the ladies.”

This time, it was Edward's turn to snort.

“You got that fuckin' right. I guess he jus' likes me, too. Sometimes, though, he complains that I've taken him off the market, or goes all poetry and shit about how beautiful women are.” Ed smiled, just a bit, then tilted his head back to watch the ceiling fan. It was going around _really_ quickly. “But really, he doesn't even look at 'em when I'm around. And a good thing, too.”

“Ha. You a jealous man, boss?”

Edward blushed and let the front legs of his chair slam back onto the ground again. His mouth opened and started talking without him ever deciding to do so.

“Well, wouldn't you be? If you ask anyone who's interested in men, Mustang's the hottest damn thing on two legs. He could have anybody he wanted.”

“'Hottest damn thing on two legs.' Can I quote you on that?” Havoc asked, a gleam in his eye, like he wanted to start taking notes or something.

“Fuck you, asshole. _No,_ in case you really weren't sure.”

The waitress returned with some kind of unidentified brown liquid in a glass, two pieces of ice floating up at the top. Ed asked what the hell it was, but all he got was a smile for his trouble. He took a sip through the attendant straw, and found that it it didn't taste nearly as disgusting as it looked. It was kind of sweet, actually, almost enough to cover up the heady taste of the alcohol.

“Seriously, though,” Ed muttered, between sips, “We fight so much that sometimes I wonder how much longer he's gonna put up with me. After today, 's he just gonna give up? I mean, I wouldn't blame him. Him bein' with me is seriously fuckin up his life goals. And then I go and do stupid shit, and he comes over to my place and he's so stone-cold angry that I wonder what the fuck he's thinking, if I'm worth all this shit.” He took a long swallow of his drink, and Havoc set his down on the table.

“Let's be clear,” Havoc said, and Ed looked up in surprise at the seriousness of his tone. “Mustang's mad right now, yeah. But he doesn't think this whole thing is your fault. At least, as far as I can gather. He doesn't say what he's thinking very much, and it's not like he confides in any of us underlings as far as personal stuff goes.” Havoc took a box of cigarettes out of his pocket, slid one to his lips, and lit it, closing his eyes in satisfaction as the smoke filled his lungs. He blew it out in a hazy cloud.

“It is sorta my fault though,” Ed mumbled. The world was a little bit wobbly. Another drink would fix it. “If not for me, none of this would ever have happened.”

“Not true. These guys had it out for him.” Havoc paused, and pulled his cigarette from his lips just long enough to have a drink. “They would have pulled up just about anything on him to make this kind of scandal, or made it up if there wasn't anything to find. By the way, is it true that you and the General get up to some seriously kinky stuff in bed?”

Ed flushed, and downed the last of his drink.

“'S none of your business,” he said, because he couldn't really think of anything better to say.

“I'm gonna take that as a yes,” said Havoc, grinning like it was his birthday. “I have to know, though: was he into this stuff before you came along, or did you just inspire him that much? Or was it your idea?”

“Oh my god, I just told you it's none of your goddamn business.” Ed paused, stared at his empty drink. “I think he's been into it for forever, though. I was – well, before Mustang, I'd never been with –” He scowled and shrunk down in his chair, because why couldn't he get the words out and why was he even trying to get those words out, anyway?

“Mustang was your first, huh?” Havoc looked entirely too pleased with himself. “I should get you drunk more often. You get really talkative.”

“Shut up,” he said, crossing his forearms on the table, letting his elbows support him as he scowled down at the table. “Seriously shut up. I hate you.”

“Aww, you're so cute when you're embarrassed,” Havoc said. Ed rolled his head to the side, so he could see the other man. “But I don't know why you're embarrassed at _that._ ” Another long puff of smoke, then a grin. “That's way less embarrassing than any of the shit I've been seeing in the papers over the past couple of days. It's not like I haven't actually seen photos of you two gettin' it on. Way more info than I needed. Though the collar was a nice touch,” he added with a laugh. “But we know what half of Central's gonna be jerking off to tonight, don't we?”

Edward let his head fall face-first to the table and covered it as best as he could with his hands.

“You have no mercy, do you? You kick a guy while he's down, and then do it over and over again,” he said, words muffled by the wood.

“Nope, none at all. Seriously, though, boss.” He paused. “You said it yourself, Mustang's been into this shit way longer than he's been into it with you. That place you guys got caught going to – had he been there before?”

Ed made a noise of assent.

“See, there you go. He would have been caught doing that sort of shit anyway. You had nothing to do with it. You were just a convenient target. But stop blaming yourself for this mess. Mustang got himself into it, and he can get himself out of it, too. If I had any advice, it would be to just continue on as normal, to stop freaking out about it, and let the team take care of it. Politics aren't your strong suit, Boss.”

Ed tapped his glass with a gloved finger, the sound soft but resonant, and pillowed his head in the crook of his elbow. Everything around him was rocking back and forth a bit, and he felt pleasantly warm, almost like his body was humming. Havoc's advice was so reasonable. When had the man gotten so smart?

“I thought you said you were gonna stop calling me 'Boss.'”

“Sorry, old habits, you know.”

“Yeah... I do.” Ed paused. “So... so you don't think that Mustang's given up on me?”

“'Course not. That's not the kind of guy the General is. He doesn't give up on people, or leave them behind just because things got a little tough.” Havoc finished off his drink and stood up, fishing around in his pocket, probably for his wallet. “Anyway, we should probably go home now. That drink that Sarah made you may have been a little strong for you.”

“Who're you callin' so small he can't hold his alcohol?” Edward said, without any particular venom. “I thought you were here to 'scout the ladies,' anyway. Haven't done much scoutin'.”

“Nah, I lied,” said Havoc, cheerfully. “I'm here 'cause I thought I'd find Mustang here. This is the bar he usually goes to when he's upset about something. I thought he could probably use some company. Drinking alone's no good. I found you instead, though.”

“So you came over here t' tease me mercilessly and pry into my sex life?” Just his luck, Roy had a bunch of fucking busybodies and gossips for underlings. 

“'Course. You looked like you needed to take your mind off things. I just wanted to let you know that it's not a big deal. Nobody who matters cares about any of this stuff. We're all working hard to make sure everything turns out okay for everybody.” 

Havoc really was a good guy. Annoying, but good.

“Nah, thanks for the offer. I'm gonna stick around here for a bit. Not quite ready to go back yet.” He looked around at Havoc. “Thanks for caring, anyway. And for the drink. And for talking to me.” He paused. “Walkin' home will probably help sober me up, anyway. Don' want Al to see me like this,” he said with a laugh. “He'd prob'ly kill me.” A pause. He pulled out a notebook and a pencil and, after a moment of thought, started to doodle a needlessly elaborate transmutation circle on the corner of one page. 

The lieutenant gave a laugh and sat back down again.

“Probably so, yeah. Well, I guess if you're gonna stay, I can stick around for a little bit, too.”

“Nah, 'sokay. Don't need to do that.” He paused to look over at the other man. “You know, I hear that people in relationships get each other presents when they fuck up. Do you think this fuckup's too big for a present? You have more experience than me with this shit, I figure you'd know better'n me.”

“What, with messing up in relationships? You sure do know how to compliment a guy.”

Ed frowned. Why did everybody always misunderstand him? It was like they were doing it on purpose.

“No, I meant with relationships in general. You've had girlfriends, right?” 

Havoc laughed.

“Yeah, I guess I have. And I did get them presents when I messed up. Sometimes it even helped,” he said, with a rueful look. He took out a new cigarette and bit down on it, though he didn't light it. “And I dunno, it might be too big of a deal for gifts, but it probably wouldn't hurt anything anyway.”

“Yeah?” Edward considered, started another transmutation circle on his paper. “What kind of shit did you get them?”

“Flowers, usually. Girls like flowers. I dunno that Mustang would appreciate roses, though.”

Edward thought of Winry and Major Hawkeye and his teacher, and wondered how they'd react to getting flowers. He would make a strong bet that Major Hawkeye didn't even own a vase.

Then without warning, in his brain, science happened.

“You know, I bet the reason it only worked sometimes was because you were working under false assumptions that you didn't even know you had. If you keep trying something and getting inconsistent results, then maybe you should look at those base assumptions. If you assume every metal you try to transmute is steel, then sure, sometimes the transmutation will work, but you'll be fucked every time you come up on something that's silver or bronze or gold or whatever.”

When Edward finally finished his thought, he looked over to find Havoc staring at him blankly.

“You sound a lot more sober, all of a sudden. Can I have that again, only without the alchemy?”

Ed scowled and scribbled angrily in his notebook. Fuck Havoc, it had been an awesome analogy.

“What I'm tryin' to say is, you're assuming a couple of things here. The way I see it, either presents aren't good for fixing all relationship fuckups, or not all girls like flowers. Maybe both.”

This time, when the man stared at him, his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were unfocused, like a bombshell had just gone off in his brain. Ed kept talking.

“I mean, take Major Hawkeye. I don't think she'd like flowers very much, yeah? What would she do if you didn't do your paperwork one day and you brought her a bouquet to apologize? Prob'ly shoot you in the foot. If you get roses for every girl you ever date without considering her personality or tastes, you're gonna come off as unoriginal and boring, not to mention a little bit stupid.” 

Havoc's cigarette dropped straight out of his mouth onto his immobile lap. There was a long silence between them, though the bar still boomed with the sounds of laughter and billiards.

“Oh my god,” he said, after probably thirty seconds of deep contemplation. “Am I getting girl advice from Alchemy Boy? The guy who spent his entire adolescence buried in weird science books and probably hasn't looked twice at a set of tits in his life? Where the hell did you learn about women? Has the General been teaching you?”

It wasn't strictly true that Ed had never looked twice at any breasts ever, he thought hazily. Some of them were really pretty nice. The waitress's, for instance, were really not bad at all.

“It helps,” said Edward, amused, “when you treat 'em as people, instead of just treatin 'em as women. Maybe if you stopped having conversations with boobs and started having conversations with the people who owned 'em, you'd've figured it out too.”

After a moment, Havoc said:

“...Do you really think I'm unoriginal and boring?”

“What? No, of course not,” Edward said with some surprise. “I said you're unoriginal and boring with _women._ ”

Havoc collapsed face-first onto the table, emitting a loud noise that sounded more like the cry of a wounded animal than anything humans should be able to produce.

“Destroyed twice in one evening by the Fullmetal Alchemist,” he said, against the wood. “Why, God? I try to be a good person. Am I doomed forever?”

“Was that a rhetorical question, or did you actually want me to answer?”

“Oh god, no, don't tell me anything else. I'm not sure I can handle any more honesty from you this evening.”

Ed shrugged, the doodle in his notebook growing to cover the whole page in elaborate patterns.

“Sorry. Didn't mean to freak you out or anything. It's all true, though.”

“Right, thanks for the encouragement,” Havoc said, not sounding thankful at all. He sat up. “So anyway, let's get back on topic. You were trying to figure out whether to get a gift for General Mustang or not. My vote is yes. I don't think any problem is so colossal that a gift can't at least help.”

“Y'know, I'm not sure if I should trust your dating advice anymore,” Ed replied, only half-serious. “You don't have the best track record.”

“Oh, shut the hell up, kid. You asked for my advice, and there it is.”

“Thanks,” said Edward, looking up from his doodle to really look at Havoc. “No, really. Thanks for listenin' and everything. Shit with Roy is seriously fucked up right now, and I don't want this thing we've got to disappear. I dunno what I'd do.” A pause: maybe that had been too honest. He wasn't really sure why he had been saying all of these things tonight. Over-sharing hadn't historically been one of his issues. “But whatever. What do you think I should get him? I'm not very used to getting people presents.” 

“Well,” said Havoc, thoughtfully, “they say that if you're giving a present, it should reflect both giver and receiver. So I dunno. If someone were going to get you a present, what would you want?”

“Alchemy books,” said Edward, without hesitation. “Hard-to-find ones. Maybe ones from Xing or Creta.” Then, he paused, thinking. “You think a book would be too generic for Mustang?”

“Well, what does he do in his spare time?”

“Um, read. Listen to the radio. Go to plays. Have _lots_ of sex.” He felt the heat rising to his cheeks as Havoc gave him an incredulous look. “What? You asked.”

“Well, sex toys probably aren't good gifts in this sort of situation,” he said, eyes lit up with sheer amusement. “Getting him tickets to a play or something sounds like a good idea, except that forcing you guys to be in a formal social space together right now, with all the shit that's happening, might not be the best idea. We don't want to get in the way of Mustang's plan or anything.”

“Yeah.” And besides, Edward hated the theatre. He put up with it occasionally, for Mustang's sake, but he wouldn't volunteer for it if there were any other options. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and rubbed the corners of his eyes, because they got itchy when he got too tired. “I'll think about it. What kind of stores are gonna be open now, anyway?” 

What time was it? Late or not?

He glanced over to the clock, but he seemed to be having trouble focusing on it: it kept swimming in and out of clarity, and he couldn't quite pin it down. A bit more effort and he could see it: nine thirty-two. 

Havoc shrugged.

“I dunno, boss. You could wait until tomorrow morning.”

“Could, but don't wanna. I wanna get all of this shit with Mustang out of the way as soon as I possibly fucking can.” He paused: his entire body felt like it was floating in water, or maybe lying on the deck of a really big boat. That was probably a sign that it was time to head out. 

“I actually know of this bookstore that's open late, so I guess that makes my decision for me,” he said, reaching out to swipe his notebook off of the table and missing by a few inches to the left: he frowned when his hand met wood. He tried again: this time, he succeeded in closing his fingers around the object, but maneuvering it into his pocket was another challenge entirely.

“I think I should get outta here,” he said, because the only thing being in that bar was gonna do was make him have another drink, and he really, _really_ shouldn't.

He motioned the waitress over to ask how much his tab was, only to find that Havoc had already paid it all at some point, without Ed noticing. 

“I can handle myself,” he snapped at Havoc, as soon as the waitress had left. “You don't needa go paying for my drinks.”

“Hey, sometimes when friends are in a bad mood or in a shitty situation, you pay for their drinks. It's a tradition,” the other man replied, standing. “I'm not trying to be patronizing or anything. Don't go getting too worked up about it.”

“'Mnot worked up,” he said, and tried to stand: he slammed a steadying hand out onto the table because as he got to his feet, the world lurched to the side. He managed to stay upright, but only just barely, catching his swaying body halfway. His frown deepened. 

Goddammit, he was drunk. _Really_ drunk. Drunker than he had ever been, probably. Maybe. Had he ever been drunk before? He couldn't remember.

“You doin' okay there, kid?” the lieutenant asked, looking genuinely concerned, but Edward planted his feet firmly on the floor and glared at them until they stuck where he put them.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” he said, taking his first step forward. That went alright, so he tried another one. “Doin just peachy.”

“Need some help?” Havoc asked, sounding entirely too amused. Edward pulled away from the other man's outstretched hand. What, was he gonna try to _carry_ Ed home? Like hell he would ever let that happen.

“No, fuck you. I got this,” he said, because he did. Walking became easier as he did it for longer.

“You sure?” Havoc asked, as they reached the door.

“Yeah,” said Edward, and stepped, through. Havoc followed, shutting the door behind him. “I'm fine. Don't need your help or anybody's.”

The night air was cool and quiet after the aggressive stuffiness of the bar, the inside din barely a memory in the face of the evening's peace. Edward immediately felt a weight off of him: he hadn't realized how irritating all that noise had been until it all fell away into silence, leaving him with a clarity of thought he hadn't felt since his first drink that evening.

Unfortunately, his clarity of thought didn't come with a coordination of motion. His next step was a bit more of a stagger, but the lieutenant didn't reach out to help him, this time, for which the younger man was grateful. This was embarrassing enough without having to accept help from someone – and Havoc, of all people.

“Don't need help from anyone, huh. That's been your motto for your whole life, I guess. But you weren't complaining when I was helping you figure out what to do with Mustang earlier.”

Edward flushed.

“That's different,” he muttered, crossing his arms. “Relationships are confusing as fuck. I dunno how people manage.”

“Honestly, me either,” said Havoc, with a laugh. “Anyway, you got this?”

“Yeah, I'm gonna head over to that bookstore I was talkin about. Get him a big box full of random books or something.”

Havoc grinned and ruffled his hair, which sent Edward's already unbalanced world further off-kilter, but he wasn't going to say anything.

“You're cute. I didn't know you cared so much about him.”

Edward scowled at the ground. The alcohol had to have been responsible for his strange behavior that evening. He usually didn't share this much about his life with anybody but Al – and _maybe_ Roy, on a good day.

“Ruffle my hair one more time and you'll lose the hand you tried it with,” he snapped and stepped away from the offending limb, then took a deep breath. “Anyway, g'night. See ya later,” he said, then turned and began to walk in the direction he was pretty sure the bookstore was in, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“See ya,” said Havoc, and Ed gave him a wave over his shoulder.

He really wished that he could just go over to Roy's place and apologize properly. He really wished that none of this shit had happened, or that it would just go away, that they could go back to being just _them,_ Roy and Ed, without all of the extraneous baggage that kept piling up wherever he looked. This kind of social problem was the only thing in the world Ed really didn't know how to deal with.

Within the first five minutes of his walk, he realized he had lost any sense of where he was, and had no where he was supposed to be going. Fuck. He had taken a right turn back at that intersection: maybe he should have taken a left? He just kept walking: turning around seemed like a lot of effort. The quiet seemed suddenly oppressive to him, a weight rather than a relief: few cars were taking this road so late at night, and he had fumbled into what seemed to be a rather sleepy area of town, filled with shops that had long since closed for the evening and no residential areas, so there were no people to fill the emptiness.

It was probably only because of the intense quiet that he heard the footsteps behind him: if he had been fully functional, he probably would have heard them long before, but the buzzing in his ears made it difficult to hear anything at all beyond his own head. Even so, even with the dulling of every sense and of his analytical mind, he knew that something was wrong. Those footsteps were too quick to be casual, and they were coming up on him fast.

He glanced over his shoulder to see the source of the sounds: less than ten paces behind him, with scowls on their faces and various dangerous objects in their hands, walked four men. The shortest of them was still probably half a foot taller than Ed, and all four of them were built like boulders. After a moment of processing, Edward realized that he recognized them from the bar: they had been playing pool and drinking since before he had gotten there at six thirty.

He spun around, planted his feet on the ground. His heartbeat quickened, the spike of adrenaline speeding up everything in his body. One man had a crowbar; two more had knives; and the last, most damaging of all, had a newspaper.

“Hey,” he said, tensing up, and suddenly painfully aware of his lack of coordination. “Can I help you guys with somethin?”

They came to a stop about five feet away. Despite the dark, Ed could see clearly that they were wearing the blue uniform pants of the military below an assortment of different civilian shirts, like they had just gotten off duty and hadn't yet bothered to change out of their uniforms entirely.

“You're the one from the newspapers, ain'tcha?” the one with the paper in hand asked. His words were slurred: clearly, he was drunk. He didn't seem to be having any trouble standing, though, so possibly he was less drunk than Edward himself was. “I recognized ya, moment you walked in. You're that little cocksucker everybody's been talkin' about – General Mustang's whore.”

Edward took his hands out of his pockets, widened his stance. The cold that washed over him then was deep, unfamiliar: after a moment, he remembered it as fear. He glanced around: there was nobody else to be seen on this street, anywhere.

“I'm nobody's whore,” Edward said, as casually as he could manage. “But you know what I am? Dangerous. So you guys'd better walk away now, while you still can.”

The one with the crowbar let out a huge guffaw, deep and so loud it echoed through the empty street.

“The little faggot thinks he can fight us. In't that cute.”

Fuck, he would really rather _not_ – he'd get in trouble with Roy again, and besides, he wasn't really sure he'd win. Not right now, not when the earth felt like a magnet, pulling him down.

“Tell me,” said the first one again, taking another step forward. “How many military officers did you seduce with your pretty little face and your girly hair? How many of them did you let fuck you to get your rank?”

“Uh, none. But it's nice to know you think I'm pretty.”

The first blow caught him off-guard: it shouldn't have, he had been watching for it, but somehow the fist that connected with his cheek slammed him to the ground.

“Don't you go hitting on _me,_ cocksucker,” he said, and when Edward looked up from the concrete he saw real malice in the man's face, a cruelty of nature and intent. “You're not gonna get me with your little whore's tricks.”

Edward lurched back to his feet, then clapped his hands to pull his familiar blade out of his automail wrist.

What he got instead of a knife was a twisted, blackened mess, extending slightly above his hand.

_Shit, that's not right. What the hell is wrong with me? Did I do the calculations wrong? Think of the wrong array? This is so basic I should be able to do it in my **sleep.**_

Fuck, I'm in trouble.

“Why're you so worried about my sex life, anyway? Does thinkin' about it turn you on? You been jerkin' off to those pictures in the paper? You like 'em?”

The man's face turned a livid red, and he laid out another blow. Edward managed to spin away from that one. Shit, why was he antagonizing the guy? Words just kept coming out of his mouth, unexpected, like he had lost all restraint.

“I don't like anything except the idea of seeing you hurting – and ain't this convenient? The papers say you like that sort of shit. What do you say we do some of it for him, boys?”

Edward managed to get his metal arm up quickly enough to block the sideways swipe of a knife to his face, but didn't manage to avoid the dull blow of a knee to his ribs. It sent him reeling, staggering to the side. He threw a punch out at the man's face as he fell to the side, and felt it connect: immediately, he slammed out a foot to stop his fall, and was on the verge of righting himself when the second knife man came at him. A dodge below, and the blade met only Edward's shoulder, slicing a red line through the cloth. Edward cursed and delivered an uppercut to his opponent's stomach: the man coughed and stumbled, even as the crowbar met the back of Edward's head.

Falling forward happened slowly, softly, like a dream: everything around him seemed covered in clouds, and they cushioned his fall. He barely noticed hitting the ground, or being grabbed by the jacket and dragged forward into an alleyway, his cheek grinding across rough concrete. The world beyond his head was inaccessible, spinning , beyond the veil of dark fog: he fought the attendant nausea as best as he could, struggled in his mind even as his body lay limp and unresponsive. Distantly, muffled by the haze and by the alcohol in his blood, he heard:

“Do you get down on your knees for Mustang? You suck his dick good? Is that why he keeps you around? Maybe I'll find out.”

His vision had begun to return as they got him into an alleyway: the first part of his body he could move was his eyes, and he opened them, only to see that first man's face, leering down at him. 

Then, he knew fear again: he hadn't felt it like this since so long ago – he remembered pigs hung by hooks in a butcher shop – the room cold, his breath freezing in puffs, and he a crippled kid with nothing left to him but half his wits and his instinct to survive as a wild-eyed madman licked his lips and came for him, cleaver in hand – 

He remembered the expression he saw in front of him, in that alleyway. He had seen it before, painted in raw light across a serial killer's face.

“You like being fucked, faggot?” he asked, grin huge, crazed. “Do you like coming with a cock up your ass?” It took Ed a second to see one of the man's hands fumbling at his belt, pulling his hard dick out to stroke it in a tight fist: the bastard was turned on by this, by seeing Ed beaten and helpless and afraid.

Afraid, maybe, but Edward Elric was _never_ helpless.

He tried to get up, realized he was being held down from behind, by arms crossed across his chest, holding his elbows to his body. He writhed, managing to knock his automail hand against his captor's knee, which earned him a curse but didn't free him.

“How about we see how much you like it now. Boys, spread his legs for me.”

Before he could react, one man had grabbed each leg and pulled them apart, leaving him completely exposed but for the thin barrier of cloth between them: the leader picked up one of his cronies' knives and sliced a line right up the seam of Ed's pants, splitting them down the middle.

One hand moved into the new opening, and hard fingers found Ed's entrance, slid up to cup his balls. He tried to give a furious kick, but to no avail: the men holding his legs were strong, and Edward was still not in full control of his body.

The man leaned in closer, taking his other hand off of his dick to slide it up Edward's neck, to cup his cheek. Ed could feel, in impossible detail, the wetness of the man's pre-come transferring from his hand to the blonde's neck. His skin set on fire behind the line of his touch, hyper-aware of the filth: bile rose in his throat, but he couldn't give in to it. Not now, not yet. The man's hard member was only a couple of feet away from his face, bobbing silently in front of him. He never stopped his struggle, kicking and flailing at his captors as best as he could, but to no effect.

“I bet a little whore like you loves cock so much that you'd come for anything. I bet you can hardly wait for it,” he said, running a thumb across Ed's nipple, which actually hardened under the touch – an automatic reaction, not one he could control, but _still_ – he was going to be sick, really sick, if his heart didn't beat its way out through his ribs first – 

The man felt it harden, and _leered,_ then shifted his whole body even closer, getting down on his knees – 

He was rank with a stench of beer and cigarettes, thick enough to choke on. Ed held his breath, waited for him to get closer, waited for the right moment – then, he mustered all of his strength to slam his head forward, into the other man's nose. He felt soft bone break against his forehead, blood dripping down into his eyes, and the man pulled back with a sharp yell.

“You little bitch,” said one, raising a hand to punch Ed again – but that was a miscalculation, because in order to do that the man had to let go of his captive's leg, and Ed kicked up a fury, smashing the man in the chin and sending him sprawling back. The blonde slid down and bit as hard as he could at the arms wrapped around his chest: he tasted blood in his mouth and heard a scream. His heart pounded, his world swimming as his body fought the terror, as he tried to keep control over himself.

Alright, this was it. He had to do it this time.

He clapped and touched the ground: immediately a pillar shot up from it, large enough to hold Edward but not large enough for the man who held his leg: his grip slid off as Ed rode his creation into the air. 

That still left the man behind him, whose blood he could feel on his teeth and whose arms were still wrapped around him, one hand sliding up to his neck to choke him – 

Ed clapped and touched his metal forearm: this time, the blackened mess he had made of his arm transformed into a passable knife, jagged on the edges but still sharp. He held it to the man's arm and jerked it down across the skin, pulling the ragged edges of the blade like a saw through flesh. Blood erupted from the gash, and the man let go, only to fall back off of Edward's column to the ground below.

Ed didn't wait to see what had happened to them. He clapped again, touched the concrete, and his tower bent to the side, depositing him on the roof of the nearest building, which – thank god – was flat, because he didn't know how he could have handled a sloped roof right then. He took off at a loping sort of run, and a stabbing pain made him aware that the slice of the knife through the crotch of his pants had not only cut cloth, but also cleaved his flesh at the join of his hip and thigh, deep and dangerous. His struggles had only made the gash worse, torn it at the edges. He was dirty, exposed, with a ragged hole at his crotch through which blood dripped like rain, the memory of that hand there between his legs almost as painful as the cut itself.

Five buildings away, he allowed himself to slow down. After that beating, they probably weren't chasing him anymore, and in any case, probably couldn't manage the roofs with Edward's agility. He had mastered rooftops long ago.

Though his body had slowed, he didn't let thought take over. Nothing had happened. He couldn't let himself think about it. It was still too soon.

_What now? Do I go home? No... Al would flip out, seeing me like this. Roy's place? Same deal. Besides, he doesn't want to talk to me right now. And he'd be mad that I got in another fight. Nope, that's out._

The only option was to keep moving forward. It didn't take long to reach the nearest main thoroughfare. He hopped down to the ground level, discreetly, in an alleyway, and transmuted the hole in his pants closed again. Then, suppressing the nausea that still threatened, he walked – casually, no need to look desperate – to the sidewalk, and waved down the first taxi he saw. The car pulled over to the side of the road, and Ed opened the door to stumble in.

“Take me to the nearest hotel,” he said, pulling a bill out of his wallet and waving it at the taxi driver.

The man driving looked at him incredulously.

“You look pretty messed up, kid. You sure you don't need the nearest hospital?”

“Fuck hospitals. No, I'm fine. I've had way worse,” he said, which was true. The man said something that Ed didn't quite catch, but after a moment, he pulled onto the road again, driving somewhere – he didn't even care where. Ed leaned against the window, too exhausted even to sit up properly. The ride went by in something of a haze, and it seemed like less than a minute before Edward was standing on the curb, mumbling his thanks to the driver. The check-in process was similarly indistinct, and Edward expertly avoided the stares he was getting. He knew he had blood on his face – in his eyelashes, in his mouth – and his clothes were scuffed where they weren't ripped all to hell, and he knew he looked a fucking mess, but it was none of their business.

Once in his hotel room, Ed kicked off his shoes, then headed straight to the bathroom to rinse his mouth out, to rid himself of the sick copper taste in his mouth – then, he wiped the blood off of himself, watching in distant fascination as he rinsed it out of the cloth and it swirled in patterns down the sink. Not knowing what else to do, he wadded up toilet paper and shoved it between the pants and the gash in his leg, to hopefully stem the flow of blood, although he couldn't suppress the violent shivers that overtook him.

The very next thing he did was head to the phone and call Alphonse, his shaking hands barely managing to spin Al's number. A glance at the clock on the wall told him that it was past midnight.

“Hello?” came the voice from the other end of the line.

“Hey, Al,” Edward said, trying not to sound anything near the way he felt. “'s me.”

“Brother?! Where are you? Are you okay? You sound awful.”

Well, apparently he was as much a failure at hiding his emotions as he had been at everything else that day.

“I'm fine. Stuff's just weird. Just wanted to let you know I wouldn't be coming home tonight. I'll see you in the morning, kay?”

“Brother –” Ed heard, but he put the phone back on its cradle before he could hear the rest of the sentence. The lies he wanted to tell had stopped short on his tongue, and Al would ask too many questions, and the last thing Ed wanted was for his traitorous mouth to tell his little brother the truth. That would hurt him too much, and he would do anything to keep his little brother from that kind of pain.

Besides, it wouldn't serve any point: there was nothing Al or anybody else could do for him. All Ed could do for himself was lie down on the crisp hotel linen, the world rocking back and forth around him, and try to sleep.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> So.
> 
> Hey guys.
> 
> I struggled with whether or not to tag this with a trigger warning. I decided not to for a number of reasons, but chiefly because I didn't want anyone to have any idea what was coming. If anyone has been adversely affected by this decision, I'm sorry.
> 
> For anyone out there who has been a victim of something like this, I will try to treat the issue with as much delicacy and respect as I can.
> 
> Anyway, I'm super nervous right now XD But I would love it if you would tell me what you thought. Your kind words are my ambrosia and nectar.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

*

The harsh cry of the telephone woke Roy from strange dreams. He opened his eyes, and for a moment he wondered if he had: the room remained just as dark after. He muttered a curse and scrubbed the back of a hand over his face to wake himself a bit, though it did little to help. After a moment, his eyes had adjusted enough to make basic movements possible; he rolled over to put his hand out onto his bedside stand, scrabbling around in the dark for a moment before yanking the phone off of its base.

“H'llo?” he asked, his throat not entirely capable of producing vowels yet. The dark gray suggestion of the clock on his wall read – he thought – twelve fifteen, to his hardly-focused eyes, much to his drowsy dismay. He lay back down and draped his forearm over his eyes to block out the world around him.

“Hello, General? It's Alphonse.”

_Alphonse?_ His brain took longer than it should have to process that information. A call after midnight was unusual enough: a call from Alphonse after midnight was absolutely unheard of. 

“What the hell are you doing calling me at twelve thirty?” he asked, rough. “I was dead asleep.”

“Yes, I'm sorry. I was just calling to ask if I could speak to Ed.”

Roy frowned, brow wrinkling below the skin of his arm.

“Edward isn't here right now. Is he not with you?”

“Not there? But I was sure...” Al paused, and the phone speaker crackled. “I just got a call from him. I was certain that he was at your place. He just told me he wasn't coming home tonight, then hung up without explaining himself at all. It wasn't like him. I just wanted to call and make sure he was okay. He sounded – well, he sounded weird. Bad, even. He sounded pretty bad. But if he's not there...” Alphonse's voice drifted off there, the tremors only slight.

Roy groaned and sat up in bed, the sudden spike of worry tempered by annoyance. How many scrapes did Edward have to get himself into in the course of one day? He was a trouble magnet, that was for sure. After their fight earlier, Roy felt reasonably sure that Ed wouldn't have gone and attacked someone else, but he couldn't be certain. Besides, fistfights with journalists weren't the only kind of trouble that Edward could get himself into.

“No, he isn't here. He hasn't been at my house since this morning.” He paused: in the haze of his recent sleep, he couldn't sort through the mix of emotions washing over him. “The last time I saw him was about six o'clock this evening.”

“When I got home at six thirty, he wasn't here,” Alphonse said, sounding more worried by the second. “Did you... did the two of you fight?” 

“I may have... lost my temper, I admit,” he said, unsure whether the regret or the righteous anger was stronger. “You must have guessed that it was over Edward's actions this morning.”

“Yeah. I'm sorry, General. I told him not to go. He said he was just going to talk, and maybe that was what he told himself he wanted to do, but all of us know that he was just itching for a fight.”

“I understand the instinct,” said Roy, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose in hopes that this small motion could stave off his oncoming headache. “Unfortunately, that is quite illegal – for a civilian, at least. I had hoped –” At that, Roy paused, working his lips. “He showed such restraint when dealing with the last reporter he came face-to-face with that I dared to hope this trend would continue. I do understand why he went. He has been under a lot of stress of a kind unfamiliar to him, and perhaps I should have been gentler in my treatment of him.”

“Nobody's perfect,” said Alphonse, his voice still wavering – he had hardly forgotten his concern for his brother, and yet he still took a moment to talk to Roy, to reassure him. The young man had only grown more extraordinary with age. “Not you, and certainly not Brother. He really did do something stupid, and I'm a little bit mad at him for it, too. But if you reacted a little strongly – well, it's understandable. You've been under a lot of stress, too. More than he has, even. I heard that you lost your command today.”

His heart clenched, the sudden impotent rage filling him again.

“You have good ears,” he said, keeping his voice calm.

“Mm,” Alphonse replied, as if he hadn't even noticed the compliment. “But whatever the reasons, and whoever is to blame, neither of us have seen him since your fight. There was no note or anything,” he said, sounding worried enough that Roy refocused, immediately. This was about Edward, not him. “I hope he didn't go do anything stupid,” the younger man murmured, then paused. “We talked, so I know he feels terrible about what he did –” oh god, that was _guilt_ curling up in him – why? Edward had been so undeniably in the wrong “– so I know he didn't go and do something that might be dangerous to you again, but he might have gone and done something that would be dangerous to _himself._ And I hope he's still in Central. I thought he learned his lesson about running away from last time, with the whole thing with Winry, but... I don't know. Maybe he was upset enough.” Another pause, and when he spoke again he sounded truly agitated. “Oh god, I hope he's not hurt.”

“I'm sure he's fine,” said Roy, putting on his voice of reassuring authority, despite the pinch of his own worry. “I'm sure he can handle himself until morning. At the very least, we know he's somewhere with a telephone.”

Part of him – the bitter, angry part – wished that Ed would even try to stay out of trouble, just this once. All the general wanted was for the man to keep his head down.

“That doesn't necessarily mean anything. It could have been a pay phone. He could be on the streets, still. He could be sleeping at a train station. He could be anywhere.” Al paused, and when he started again his voice was shaking. “He really did sound awful. And he _knows_ that I worry when I don't know what's happening, so the fact that he didn't tell me what was going on tells me that whatever mess he got into was probably bad – worse than whatever I would be imagining. I know that my brother can take care of himself, but _still,_ ” he said, sounding absolutely wrecked.

The queasiness he had felt before had begun to return: something certainly wasn't right. 

“You're right. That is worrisome.” Roy paused, thinking. “But I don't think there's anything we can do about it tonight, short of sending out a police search, and I don't think the situation warrants that just yet – especially given the fact that the police are likely to arrest him if they find him. If we still haven't heard from him by tomorrow at noon, then we'll make other plans. But I'm sure he'll be back by then, and he'll be fine. Alright, Alphonse?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Al replied, sounding steadier than before. He was probably at least moderately reassured. “I'll call you whenever I talk to him. I'm sorry for waking you up, General.”

“Not a problem. I'm glad you're letting me know what's happening. Sorry I wasn't more helpful to you.” 

“It's alright. There's nothing much that can be done.”

“I hope he comes back soon.”

“Me too.”

*

Approximately fifteen minutes before noon, Alphonse's worried hovering next to the kitchen telephone was interrupted by the quiet squeak of the front door. The telephone beside him forgotten, Al jumped to his feet and tried to smooth the worry from his face.

“Brother?” he asked, peering through the living room into the entry hallway and hoping: there stood Edward, slouched and staring at the ground, kicking off his boots by the coat hooks and leaving them where they lay. “Brother, where have you _been?_ I've been so worried about you!”

“Gyah, Al,” Edward said, turning slowly towards his younger brother and putting a hand to his head. His hair was down and damp, like he had taken a shower not too long ago. Thick, damp strands hung over his face, shadowing it. “Can't you be a bit quieter? My head is fucking _killing_ me. You got, like, aspirin or somethin?” 

“Yes, I have all kinds of aspirin, but why do you need it and where _were_ you last night?”

Ed tensed up, visibly, and looked to the side. Alphonse felt his gut clench.

“Ah, nowhere special. Got a little drunk, spent the night in a hotel. Nothin' to worry about,” he said, taking his jacket off and hanging it on the rack. “Just have the hangover to end all hangovers. Remind me never to drink again.” As he turned back, he wouldn't look Al in the eye, but Alphonse wouldn't have believed his brother's words even if he had. Something told him that, this wasn't the time for hard interrogation or for accusations, though. The set of his brother's body was notably subdued, his shoulders sagging with exhaustion.

“I see,” said Alphonse, in his best I'll-let-it-go-for-now tone. “Well, come on. I have aspirin in the kitchen. I'll put the kettle on. Come on, sit down,” he said, gesturing to the kitchen table. “I'll get you some lunch, too.”

“Nah, I'm fine. Just gonna go upstairs an' get back in bed. That hotel mattress might has well have been a rock for all the sleep I got on it.” Ed turned as he said it, and Al realized that he hadn't seen the right side of Edward's face since he had come in.

“No,” said Al, in a voice that didn't leave any room for argument. “You aren't. Not until we've talked. Come here, Ed.”

Ed flinched, but remained where he stood.

“Brother,” he said, warning. “Seriously, I already don't believe you about everything being fine. There's no need to keep playing at it. You had better just come here before I get really mad at you, and you don't want that.”

The face Ed made then could have been pained or disgusted – Al wasn't sure. The elder brother took a tentative step forward, then another, his automail clacking faintly against the wood. He came to a stop a few feet in front of the other, still looking away, to the side.

“Look at me, Brother,” Al said, searching his brother's face. “I mean, straight on,” he added, because Ed, being a contrary human being, responded by turning his eyes up without moving.

When he finally did, with a look as sullen as any Al had ever seen, the younger saw a strange scab on his right cheek: it was long and wide, but not at all deep, and at the end trailed into a dozen smaller abrasions. It looked like the scrapes they used to get on their knees as kids, from falling down or sliding down trees or just rough kids' play. How would Ed have gotten a scrape like that, on his cheek of all places? Something about it seemed very odd.

“That doesn't look good.” He stepped forward and extended a hand to touch the other man's face, see the extent of it more closely, but Edward flinched and pulled back. Al frowned. “Ed, what were you doing that got you that?” A pause. “Do you have any more injuries I should know about?”

“I wasn't doing anythin' special. I just fell down. And no, no more injuries. Can I go now?”

There wasn't a bit of Al that believed that his brother had “just fallen down.” Ed might not have been precisely what one would call “graceful,” but he was extremely physically competent. He didn't fall over unless he was _made_ to fall over, somehow.

“You were getting into fights again, weren't you,” Al said, the words more cutting than he had intended. Then, quietly, a bit sadly: “You know, the General isn't going to like that.”

“The _General_ can go fuck himself if he has anything to say about it,” Edward snapped, his vehemence taking Al by surprise. There was something very wrong here, and Al wasn't putting the pieces together fast enough. “I didn't do anything wrong. Not this time.”

“Okay, then tell me what happened. I'm sure if you explain yourself, I'll understand. In the meantime, why don't we go upstairs and get that scrape cleaned up for you?”

“I know you're just trying to help, but can you let it go?”

“You know I'm not going to, brother. Would you let it go if it were me in your situation?”

“I guess not,” the older man said with half a laugh. “Fine, let's go upstairs.”

Once in the bathroom, Ed sat down on the toilet lid as Alphonse collected cotton balls and antiseptic from the medicine cabinet. When he leaned in towards his brother to better access his cheek, the strangest thing happened – Ed jerked back, away from Al's hand, from his body, like the physical contact burned. Al couldn't do much but sit back in shock.

“Edward?” he asked, slowly. “What's wrong?”

“Here, gimme the cotton ball. I'll clean it myself.”

“No!” said Al, so loudly that he could feel the echo through the tiled room, clenching the cotton ball in his hand. “I'm not going to let you go hide, I'm not gonna let you take care of this yourself and shut me out, I'm not going to let you do _anything_ else until you tell me what happened.” He set his mouth and eyes into hard lines. “Besides, you're only digging your own hole deeper by not talking to me. Right now all the evidence points to you having gotten into a bar-room brawl last night, and that's not going to sit well with the general. If that's not what happened, tell me.” He only felt a little bit bad for the emotional manipulation – what he had said, although it might have been kind of mean, was hardly a lie. He had this feeling that Ed wasn't going to talk if Al didn't take some extreme measures.

There was a silence. Al began to wonder if his brother was going to answer at all. Then, looking down at his knees, Edward said:

“Couple of motherfuckers attacked me, last night. I was leaving the bar and a bunch of 'em followed me out with weapons and shit. I was pretty drunk, then – way too drunk, not really walking straight. I never shoulda had so much. These guys wouldn't even have given me a problem on a normal day, I just woulda left their asses in a pile to get picked up by the cops. But it was –” His voice caught, then, in a way that Al wasn't used to hearing from his brother. “It didn't go so well.” Ed paused. Alphonse wanted to reach out and touch his brother, but Ed looked so defensive – arms crossed and shoulders hunched, drawn in on himself – that he stopped halfway. “I got away eventually, and gave 'em some hurt to remember me by. One of 'em has a broken nose, at least.”

If that had been all that it was, then why did Ed still look so small? There was no anger there, none of his usual pride at having delivered justice by his own hand. Surely, he had fought worse than those few thugs, in his many years facing down men and monsters.

“Good,” said Al, softly, trying to keep his confusion at bay. “I'm glad you hurt them. They deserved it.” 

“Yeah.” A pause. “They were military. It had something to do with all that shit that's going down with Roy.” he said, tonelessly. “They were calling me shit out of the newspaper article. I'm sure they would have gone after him, too, except that nobody's stupid enough to attack the Flame Alchemist. They know they'll get roasted. I guess I just looked like an easy target. Well, they learned _their_ fucking lesson.”

Automatically, Al put a hand out on his brother's knee, only to find that once again, his brother flinched and jerked away. The sight stabbed him, froze him there with his hand out and his brow creased in surprise and hurt.

“Sorry,” said Ed, upon recognizing the look on his brother's face. “Guess I'm still a bit jumpy. My head hurts like hell and everything's way too loud. Where was that aspirin you were talking about? Sounds really good right about now. Man, hangovers are the worst,” he said, lightly.

After a moment, the younger brother shook off his brief paralysis.

“Oh, um, it's right here,” said Al, standing up to retrieve a small white bottle from the medicine cabinet. He took one of the two glasses from next to the sink and filled it with water from the sink, using the brief reprieve to think. _Ed looks really shaken._ He handed the glass and a few pills over to his brother, who tossed them back and downed all the water in one go. _What would freak him out like this? Clearly he doesn't want to talk about it. Should I press more, or just respect that? Would it be beyond the pale to call Roy and tell him about it without Brother's permission?_

“Thanks,” he said, standing up. He smiled at the other, then reached out a hand to ruffle Al's hair. “Anyway, the scrape really isn't as bad as all that. Go ahead and clean it off, if you want. I'm gonna go to bed after that, though.”

Al wasn't sure if Ed was feeling better, shaking off that abject blankness and getting a hold of himself, or if he was just putting his mask back on for his little brother's sake. 

The truth was that whatever had happened last night, Ed had definitely seen worse. On the one hand, Al knew that this fact meant that Ed could handle whatever got thrown his way, and that things that would bother or devastate another person would hardly register on the scale of his brother's life. 

On the other, it meant that Ed was prone to just trying to shake off everything as “not a big deal,” no matter how disturbing. He compartmentalized it, locked it in the part of his head where the bad things go, but that certainly did not mean that he didn't take the memories out at night, to examine them, obsess over them – 

Al took up the cotton ball and poured antiseptic onto it, then reached up – slowly, Ed had been so skittish the last time – and dabbed it on his cheek. This time, Ed didn't pull back.

“I'm glad you're okay, Brother. I thought something really bad might have happened to you,” he said, softly wiping.

“Me too,” he said, then: “And who the hell d'you take me for? I don't go down without a fight. You oughta know that by now,” he said, and Al returned his faint grin. When the younger brother had finished cleaning the injury, he stepped back.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, then put his hands on his hips. “Okay, go to bed, if you must. I'm going to go do some tidying. Come find me when you wake up? I'll make you lunch. Or dinner, if you're lazy enough to stay in bed all day,” he said with a laugh. Ed smiled back, but that wasn't enough to shake the queasy feeling in the younger man's gut.

“Thanks, Al. You're the best,” he said, brushing past his brother and towards his room.

“Of course,” Al replied, tossing the cotton ball into the trash and putting the other things away as well. “Feel better, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, behind Al, before shutting his door.

Al sighed and looked down at the sink. Maybe Roy would be able to get something out of him. He turned, and went downstairs to make a phone call.

*

“Major Hawkeye's office, speaking,” she said, as she picked up her desk telephone.

“Hello, Major,” she heard from the other line – General Mustang. She leaned back in her chair, the emptiness and quiet of her office room welcome.

“Hello, sir. What can I do for you?” she asked, scanning the room absently. She tapped her pen on the report she had been reading.

“I have something of a strange request. Can you have somebody look at who's been admitted into the medical clinic late last night or today? There should be at least one man there now, possibly more than one, who got their injuries under mysterious circumstances. One of the injuries is a broken nose. I need you to find out those men's names, and who they were with last night.” For a moment, he sounded like he was going to stop there, but she waited in silence for clarification, and he obliged. “The men in question attacked Edward last night on his way back from a bar and injured him somehow,” he said, harsh. Hawkeye's brow wrinkled: she sensed immediately that something wasn't right. Then, more normally, she continued, “I need them all found and investigated. Find eyewitnesses, find evidence of what they've done. Find out if they have any political affiliations – find out the motivations for the attack. We need to have enough proof to have them arrested and jailed.”

“Yes sir,” she said. “Right away.”

“And Major?” He paused. “If you have an opportunity to put some bleach or something in their antiseptic, do it.”

She frowned.

“Sir?”

“It was a joke, major,” he returned, lightly. Another pause. “But seriously, if you get a chance...”

Her lips quirked up.

“Noted, sir.”

*

Late that afternoon, after Edward had woken up and picked at the lunch Alphonse had made him, he finally got the call he had been dreading all day.

“Hello?” he said, answering the telephone with a sharp sense of foreboding.

“Hello, Edward.” came Roy's voice over the phone, and Ed flinched.

“Uh, hey,” he said again, and felt like a dumbass immediately for repeating himself. “What's up?”

“Alphonse tells me you got into another fight last night.”

“Al just tells you everything, doesn't he. Well I didn't start this one, I swear to god.”

He really hadn't started it, of course. He had brought it down on himself, though: the natural punishment for his sins couldn't be avoided for long. Of course. He remembered. It had happened before.

“So I hear,” said Roy, and Ed couldn't identify the tone in his voice. “But are you okay? He says you were injured.”

“Just a scrape. He's really makin' a big deal over nothing.” The scrape on his cheek that Al had seen had scabbed over properly, and would heal quickly. Swallowing his fear of needles out of necessity, once alone in his bedroom Ed had stitched up the cut on his shoulder himself, but he hadn't wanted to touch the one at the juncture of his thigh. He didn't want to think about it. The best he had managed was a makeshift bandage out of his old sheets: he had wrapped it up as best as he could, but every time tried to walk the damn thing opened up again, and he knew it was still bleeding sluggishly. Maybe tomorrow he could try to stitch it up. Tomorrow, he would.

“You wouldn't be hiding anything from him, would you? You know we just want to make sure you're okay.”

“What, are you worried? Aren't you still mad as hell at me?”

“With you especially, the two are not mutually exclusive,” Roy said, this time sounding amused, fond. “But I've calmed down. When I hear that you've been in real danger because of your relationship with me, it puts things in perspective.”

Ed hurt to hear that.

“Don't be stupid, it had nothing to do with you. I was being a dumbfuck and brought it on myself.”

He was glad he hadn't told Al very much about what had happened when they had talked earlier. His little brother was always kind and well-meaning, but also kind of a busybody. It wasn't anybody's business what had happened last night. He wished everybody would just stop asking these goddamn questions.

“Really,” said Roy, sounding unconvinced. “What were you doing?”

“Oh, you know. Mouthing off. The usual.” _Asking for it. Being drunk. Being sick in the head._

“I see,” he said, and for a second Ed was really afraid that his lover was going to actually get mad again – maybe he deserved it, but still, the thought frightened him. “I don't believe you,” he said at last, and laughed. “Why don't you come over?”

Ed swallowed, and when he did he found his mouth was completely dry. In their relationship, “Why don't you come over” almost always translated to “Why don't you come over and have sex?” 

He couldn't do that, not right now. Not with the feeling of that hand being shoved up through the gash in his pants still so fresh on his skin, not with _You like coming with a cock up your ass?_ still ringing in his ears. So many times, Roy had called him _slut_ with a hand on his naked body, and then this stranger with a killer's face had called him the same thing, to remind him of what he was being punished for, and this time he wouldn't forget. 

_Get a fucking grip. Stop whining about it and just move on._ Why was this still bothering him? This was nothing compared to what he had been through, to what Al had been through because of him.

But even if Ed had wanted to have sex – right then, he didn't, but he wanted to again someday _(dirty whore, can't even learn your lesson, can you)_ – Roy couldn't see him naked right then. The clothes would come off and the man would see _(me)_ the cut between Edward's legs, and then there would be questions that Ed didn't want to answer. If he played his cards right, Roy would never have to know.

“Ah, I've actually got – stuff, to do,” he said, mind spinning to find an excuse. “I – I gotta go in to the lab, you know. Haven't been going during for the past couple of days, so I gotta take care of shit tonight. I've got data from about six monster plants that need analysis. If we don't get it all down by Monday, then we'll be in trouble. We're already behind schedule. Sorry.”

“I see,” said Roy, voice neutral, showing no reaction to Edward's babbling. “Perhaps after?”

“It's gonna be pretty late. You'll probably be asleep.”

“I see,” he said again, quietly, thoughtfully. “Well, I'll leave you to that, then. Enjoy yourself.”

“Yeah, you have a good evening too. I'll see you later?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Yeah,” said Edward, and hung up the phone.

*

Although General Batir was perhaps not the most stimulating of conversation partners, he was at least a receptive one. They sat together in Weimar's sitting room, sipping black coffee from porcelain mugs as Meredith brought in a matching silver set of a creamer cup and sugar bowl. She left it on the coffee table in front of them without a word, though he thanked her as she left.

“Do you really think we can do this? The Fuhrer said that we should be focusing our attentions outward, not inward,” he said, resting his mug on his knee. “What about Aerugo?”

“My agents are sowing dissent behind enemy lines. Very shortly, if all goes well, there will be no unity in the Aerugan army, and they will be unable to focus their attentions on us. Dissent is the downfall of nations, after all,” he said, giving the other man a pointed smile. Batir nodded, brow wrinkling.

“But if we expressly disobeyed the Fuhrer's orders, wouldn't _we_ be the dissenters?”

Weimar put on a look of shock and horror.

“I never had a thought of disobeying the Fuhrer, sir. You do not give me enough credit,” he declared, with fervor. “But Fuhrer Hakuro's orders were given when Mustang had his ear, and now that Mustang is out of the picture and his bitch dog has taken his place, his faction is much less of a threat. No amount of coaching can make up for that woman's lack of charisma. We'll have the Fuhrer on our side in no time at all – and we'll do it without any of them knowing.”

Batir raised an eyebrow.

“You make it sound so very easy. We don't know if he's out of the picture permanently, you know.”

Another hot, long swallow, and he put his mug down on the coffee table.

“Do I? I don't mean to make it seem like I think this will be simple. I just mean that I am determined to push through, for the safety and unity of our nation.”

The look Batir gave him then was sharp and searching.

“And I as well.” A pause. “You know, this was really a very convenient time for Mustang to be found out,” he said, slowly, like he was thinking hard.

Heart beating a bit faster, Weimar replied:

“ _Any_ time would be a good time for that man to take a fall,” he said, dismissively, and neither man spoke another word about it.

*

The next morning was bright, lovely, and also a Sunday: this was excellent for a number of reasons, but chiefly because none of the Central newspapers printed on the weekends. So, for the second day in a row, Roy walked out onto his porch to find no newspaper there. What he found instead of his daily dose of misery was a giant wooden milk crate full of books.

The sight took him by surprise for a moment, then drew a smile from him. He was a clever man, but it wouldn't have taken a clever man to divine the sender of such a gift.

A weight he hadn't known he had been carrying lifted. Their conversation yesterday had left him unsettled: he couldn't remember many times in their relationship when Edward had sounded so strange. But, he realized upon ardent consideration, the younger man had probably just been nervous about the prospect of seeing him: their previous meeting had gone so poorly that he really couldn't blame the man for it. However, that knowledge didn't seem to have soothed him much. The general hadn't realized how worried he had been about them and their relationship until he found that worry so quickly assuaged.

Whatever the man's thoughts or fears, this gift was proof that Edward hadn't retreated entirely. He wanted to make things better between them. The smile on Roy's face felt strange, unfamiliar, but welcome. Of course an apology gift from Edward Elric would be books. He bent over to take the first one from the top: _A Short History of Nearly Nothing._ The second: _By Snow and by Ice: A Collection of Northern Ghost Tales._

Then, he noticed the note attached by alchemy to the back of the crate. There, scrawled in handwriting that never became any easier to read for all its familiarity, was written:

_Hey;_

_So, I got you a present, cause I know I messed up bad. I didn't know what sort of thing you'd want, but you're always reading stuff when I come over so I thought books might be a good idea. These kinds of books aren't really my thing, but I thought they might be yours. I tried to pick ones that at least looked a bit interesting._

_Sorry for everything. Hope you like the books.  
Ed_

Roy carefully removed the letter, then folded it up and put it in the breast pocket of his dress shirt. He didn't think he would ever take it out again.

Unable to stop the grin that was spreading across his face, he picked up the crate and took it inside, then began to go through the books one by one. 

*

At least, despite all the things that had been going horribly, Ed's plants were growing well.

The worst thing about this plant modification shit was that first he had to modify the seeds, then wait till they were _grown_ to figure out exactly what his modifications had done. This batch of bean plants seemed promising, though: they seemed larger and more verdant than they had been previously, which Ed hoped was a good sign. A second, younger batch of bean plants seemed to be sprouting, but the stalks were black – Ed couldn't tell if that was an incidental color change or a sign that something had gone horribly wrong and turned the plants into horrible flesh-eating monsters or something. He would have to wait for more evidence on that one. A third batch contained the first try at a second generation, plants grown from the seeds of the first plants that had showed a significant response to the genetic transmutation. Only time would tell if they would keep the characteristics of their forebears or if the effects of the transmutation were limited to one generation.

He tapped his pen on his bottom lip as he stared down at the transmutation circle he had been planning, grateful that the lab was empty that day. Al had promised to pop in and check on him later, with worry in his eyes and a smile on his lips. For the moment, though, he was still at piano lessons, an art to which he had taken quite well.

Ed turned his attention sharply back to the work in front of him. Despite his best efforts, it was proving quite difficult. _Why did I choose the wave symbol here? Wouldn't the inverlocus be better? What would Roy think if he found out about –_

_He'd be mad at me for going out and getting drunk. What the hell was I thinking? Maybe, if he heard about this, it would make him see exactly how sick I really am, would make him regret all of those things we had done together... I wanted it, after all, that night when Roy and all of those strangers spread my legs and held me down, then fucked me one by one. I liked it. I **loved** it. So this is just equivalent exchange: I got what I wanted, and I got punished for it in kind._

He started another circle on a fresh corner of his paper, trying a new arrangement.

_Triple concentric circles, to focus the transmutation on the smallest part of the seed. The inverted triangle, for water. The inverlocus, for the source, the gene, but inverted to **change** the source. I chose the wave for its infinite mutability, but – _

_– I'm so sick, I brought this on myself_

(whore)

The worst part was that he didn't seem to have learned his lesson. Still, part of him wanted to go to Roy, to be with him, to talk to him about it and let the man soothe him with soft touch and pretty words. But it wasn't Roy's burden to bear – it was Edward's, and he should bear it.

Ed slumped down on his desk. This was going to be useless. How did he ever think he'd be able to get work done today? The wound at the juncture of his thigh still hurt like a bitch, and because he hadn't stitched it up, he knew it was still bleeding, and probably only tearing longer and wider without stitches to hold it shut. There would absolutely be a scar there, to remind him forever of what he was.

He was going to have to go and get it sewn together professionally. The angle was too weird for him to do it himself without fucking something up. Besides, although he had managed to get some control over his fear of needles, he wasn't sure how well he was going to be able to deal with this particular injury, for a number of reasons.

He nearly jumped out of his seat when his thoughts were interrupted by a voice:

“Edward.” It was Roy. Ed spun around in his chair to face the doorway, and there, of course, was the man himself, wearing slacks and a well-pressed button-up shirt. Even on his days off, he always looked so put-together and presentable. Ed almost felt out of place in his old, stained lab coat, even though this was the _best_ place for his stained lab coat.

“Oh, uh, hey,” he said, as articulate as ever, never getting up from his chair. “Didn't expect to see you here. You don't come over often.”

Roy looked around, a faint smile on his face as he examined the lab: it wasn't anything particularly special, just a normal lab with microscopes lining long tables and plants in rows of little identical planters. The walls were covered in shelves that were stuffed with books everywhere that they weren't full of beakers and other such measuring devices, and sections of the floor were cordoned off because they were covered in enormous chalk transmutation circles. Even though they were working with seeds, the circles had to be large: each one, following Edward and Alphonse's design, was intensely detailed, and even Edward's artistic skill couldn't create lines small enough to fit that much detail into a smaller circle.

A number of beakers and flasks with varying levels of colored liquids sat about on the furniture, and not all of it on tables. An enormous bowl full of chalk pieces took up one full half of a table.

“I always want to know how it's going, Ed. I just never want to interrupt your work,” he said, which was probably true: the project had been Roy's idea, after all, based, at least in the beginning, on Roy's research. The man paused, smiled in earnest. “The place looks like you,” he said.

Ed scowled.

“What, messy and disorganized? The mess wasn't mine, for your information. It was everybody else's,” he said, which might even have been partly true.

“No, not messy, that's not the word I would use. Complicated,” Roy said with a laugh. “Interesting.” 

Ed feigned indifference to the flattery.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, crossing his arms over the back of the chair. He didn't straddle it, like he might otherwise have done, but twisted his torso, so his knees pointed off to the sides as his front faced Roy. “Anyway, you never told me why you're here.”

“I saw your gift.” A pause: Ed waited. “I loved it. I thought it was incredibly considerate of you to get me one.”

Ed pinked at the cheeks in pleasure, but his embarrassment prevented him from looking up from the floor. At least _this_ was what the man was here about, not to ask awkward questions or yell at him or anything.

“I didn't know what to get you. I've never really – done gifts before, you know? Havoc suggested roses, but I didn't think that would really work for you.”

Roy gave a short laugh.

“Yes, quite true. Although flowers are beautiful, I much prefer your gifts. They're very personal.”

“Oh. Good. I wasn't sure.”

“No need to have worried, you made an excellent choice.” After a moment, his face fell, growing a bit more serious. He took a few steps inside, towards Ed, though he still remained a comfortable distance away. “I can't tell you how happy I am that you're okay after everything, and how sorry I am that you had to experience something like that because of me. I'm sure it must have been frightening.”

Ed felt the blood start to drain into his feet. He really didn't want to talk about this. At the same time, he found himself surprised to hear Roy say it was _his_ fault. What the hell about it could possibly be Roy's fault?

“Wasn't because of you. You don't have to go taking responsibility for everything. I can handle it myself.”

The laugh that escaped the older man then was warm.

“Hypocrite. But we can talk about it later.”

Roy was looking at him _too_ fondly, and beginning to advance on him. Son of a bitch. He was going to want to fuck, probably here, quick and dirty between his lab equipment. They always made up for fights with really mind-blowing sex. A significant part of their connection had always been their deep lust for each other. He wasn't feeling very lustful right then. He didn't know when he would be again.

A thought occurred to him: what if, without the sex, their precarious relationship collapsed under the stress of everything that had been happening? 

“Right now,” Roy began, in that voice that could make Edward come undone, “I just want to fuck you hard over your desk. How does that sound?”

The skin from Ed's hands to his neck prickled, and he started to sweat. 

_(Do you like coming with a cock up your ass?)_

He found himself clenching the back of the chair, his head whirling with a million thoughts. Fuck. He tried to keep his voice steady, even as the breaths he took came fast and shallow.

“Um, not right now,” he said, mouth dry as sandpaper. “Maybe later. I've got a couple of cell cultures that're going to be ready in about ten minutes, and I've got to do stuff with them before the hour's out.”

Roy frowned, looking confused, and Ed was the biggest asshole in the world. 

“Oh. Alright,” he said, searching Edward carefully, brow furrowed into crevices. “I see that you're busy. That's fine. Major Hawkeye is probably waiting for me anyway. We have strategies to plan and work to get done.” He paused again. “Thank you for taking the time to go pick out those books for me.” Ed couldn't tell if that strangeness in his voice meant that he was trying to make a point, or if it meant something completely different.

He wanted to apologize, to let Roy fuck him there – mentally, he could handle it, he _could (sick bastard for still wanting it anyway, you never learn your lessons, do you?)_ – but even if Ed could manage to breathe properly, could calm the frenzied racing of his heart, when he spread his legs his lover would still see a bloodstained bandage there. He would know what had happened. He couldn't know – he'd look at Ed and feel sick, disgusted, feel pity, and Ed didn't want him to say anything else again like _I'm sorry, it was my fault._

But goddammit, Roy looked so _hurt_ behind that mask of his. All Ed ever could do was hurt people, even when all he wanted to do was protect them. He consoled himself with the knowledge that, whatever the man was feeling now, it was a hundred times better than how he would be feeling if he saw that gash.

“It wasn't a problem. I'm just glad – you're not mad at me anymore, are you?”

“Not mad, no,” said Roy, in such a strange way that Edward wanted to ask him what he meant. He didn't. “I hope to see you later. Perhaps I could join you and Alphonse at your house for dinner tonight?”

Yes, that would be perfect. They would have someone else there to ease the tension between them, and Ed would have at least some insurance that Roy wouldn't ask him for sex again. He had refused his lover twice already: one more would make three, and then no one could fail to notice a pattern. To be honest, the man had probably noticed already. Ed had tried to be natural, calm about it, but Roy was clever, and knew him well by now.

“Yeah, that would be great,” the blonde said, flashing the other man a grin that was mostly genuine. “I'd like that. Can we plan on seven?”

“Sounds good,” Roy replied, with a faint smile to mirror Ed's. He took a few long steps forward, until he was standing right in front of Ed's chair. Then, he bent over, tucked a hand under Edward's chin, and tilted it up before kissing him on the forehead, then the tip of his nose, then his lips. “I look forward to it,” he said, after he pulled away.

“You're a friggin' sap,” said Edward, wrinkling his face, then giving the tip of his nose a vigorous scrub to get the lingering sensation off, because he was Edward Elric and nobody kissed him on the nose because that was _weird,_ and because – because that touch – sickness conquered his throat, memory welled up in him – Roy was laughing at the way he scrubbed the kiss off –

He could keep himself together. He could stay normal. Roy would never have to know.

“But I guess I like you anyway,” Edward continue, with a wan smile. Then, “See you at seven,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “And have a good day in the meantime.”

“Yourself as well,” Roy said, before turning for the door.

*

On that same crisp Sunday morning, Major Hawkeye found herself in her office at eight o'clock, a hazy fall sunlight just beginning to peer over the crests of the buildings. Ever since joining General Mustang's command, she had made it her business to keep up with all of the man's plots and plans, and to keep herself well-educated on the topics at hand, so as best to advise him. However, with her sudden unexpected promotion to politician, she realized just how untutored she was in all of the subjects most crucial to his work. As she had busied herself with the details of the man's operation – with the meeting times and the arranging of schedules, with keeping her eyes open and her mind clear of inconvenient biases – the general had been reading books on politics, on history and strategy, on foreign cultures and diplomacy.

More importantly still, he had been practicing the art of likeability. His aptitude for charming and sweet-talking his political opponents and allies both had long been a subject which she had regarded with an amused tolerance, though she had known its devastating effectiveness. Now, looking over this eight-page typed summary of the major Amestrian political figures' interests, histories, biases, personalities, and political goals, she appreciated it in a different way: now, she realized just how much work his seemingly effortless charm actually took. 

With that came the realization that, for the first time in many years, she was really and truly out of her depth. Not only would she have to remember all of these people, remember where to press them to make them see things her way, and how to speak to them to encourage them to do as she wanted, but she would actually have to put that knowledge into effect on the spot, on a battleground that was more foreign to her as any she had ever seen.

Even in the military academy, she had skillfully managed to avoid most classes that might have involved public speaking: she had been such an excellent shot from the very beginning that no one seemed to mind if she took an extra weapons class or two instead of The Art of Rhetoric. On the rare occasion that she had been required to speak in front of a group of people, she had always had a script that she could memorize and reproduce perfectly, down to the last detail. She would have no such luck here.

She had always known that the skills that Roy Mustang brought to the table were rare and worthy of admiration, but never before had she realized how large were the shoes that she would now have to try to fill.

A number of hours later, when the sun had risen enough that it drenched the whole city in its light, a knock at the door broke her concentration. The clock told her that it was nearly two, a scant hour before General Mustang was due to arrive. She had hoped to have a better grasp on the material before then, but it was not looking promising.

“Come in,” she said to whoever stood outside, letting none of her thoughts play out in her voice or on her face. At least she would never give any of them the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort. The door opened shortly to reveal Second Lieutenant Lilian Astor, who took a few steps forward and presented herself to Riza with a sharp salute.

“Sir,” she said. “I have the report you requested.”

Astor had been a good find: she had taken only a few years to jump up through the ranks in the Intelligence department, and Roy, seeing her skills, had recruited her to his cause as soon as she made Warrant Officer. The woman seemed to have a talent both for finding information others might not, and for becoming quite invisible. When she chose to be, she could be completely unremarkable: consequently, she could find her way into places she should not have been able to and heard many things that she should not have heard. Her sharp ears caught as much as Hawkeye's eyes, and together they were a dangerous pair.

Although they did not know each other well, Hawkeye had entrusted her with a particularly delicate assignment: she had a reputation for discretion that would not go unappreciated in this case.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Hawkeye replied, secretly glad of the brief reprieve from analyzing the intricate dance her general performed so well. “Anything of note to report?” The woman did not stand down from her salute, so Hawkeye added, “At ease.”

The woman moved to the at-ease position, clasping her hands behind her but keeping her shoulders as rigid as Hawkeye had seen since Falman had first joined their team. Astor kept her face completely unmoving as she responded.

“Yes, sir.”

Hawkeye waited for the other woman to continue: she did not, so Riza tried another approach.

“You can speak to me, you know,” she said, with some amusement. “I don't bite.”

Her attempt at levity prompted a wavering attempt at a smile from the investigations officer. 

“Normally, I would, but I think that you should just read it yourself.”

Riza frowned: she nodded and extended a hand. Astor stepped forward and passed the thin folder to the other woman, who opened it and smoothed it out flat on the table. On it, she saw four small black-and-white prints of ID photo mugshots, next to names and ranks. She glanced over it all, noting that each name was followed by a paragraph detailing the injuries that had been treated at the clinic, then by another describing the men's personal histories, criminal histories, and political affiliations. In these, she found nothing particularly startling: two of the four had received treatment for injuries, one for a broken nose and the other for a jagged cut on his arm that looked like it might have been made with a saw. Their criminal histories read more or less as she would have expected: over the course of their time in the military, both had spent a few nights in jail for drunken and disorderly conduct, and one had been accused of sexual assault on a civilian woman, though he had been acquitted due to lack of evidence. They had no notable affiliations politically.

Below the two individual reports, Astor had collected eyewitness testimony stating that those four men had been together at the military bar at which Edward – and Havoc, apparently – had been drinking two nights previous, and that they had left together merely minutes after Edward and Havoc had.

“I haven't read this too closely, but nothing seems to be too out of the ordinary, Lieutenant.”

“The next page, sir,” she said, shifting her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

She turned the next page to find, what looked like a transcript: she glanced up at Lieutenant Astor but was given no response, and so continued. A deep sense of foreboding came over her, and she began to read in earnest. 

_Outside Dormitory Entrance_

_**Saturday, 9.24.17** _

_T. Jeffreys: Hey, Asel. How's the nose?_

_G. Asel: The doctors say it'll be crooked forever. That faggot's got a lot to answer for._

_Jeffreys: Yeah, the stupid fucker. Cromwell had to get nine stitches on that gash on his arm, did you hear? I'm surprised that he could still pack such a punch even when he was so drunk. You saw him, he was having trouble walking straight._

_Asel: I don't fucking get it. He just suddenly started acting like he didn't want it, too – to keep his dignity I guess. What a joke! How can he pretend to be all virginal after it's all over the papers how he takes it up the ass for favors? I guess we're just not fucking good enough for him, huh. I guess he only fucks people who'll give him things._

_Jeffreys: I woulda given him what he wanted. I woulda made him hurt, just like he likes it, if Cromwell had been holding him down better. I hope he learned his lesson, anyway: we don't want no fags here._

_Asel: The whole thing's fucking sick. He deserves worse than what we gave him. I hate him, and guys like him – he goes and seduces the Hero of Ishbal with his girly hair and his big eyes and his whore's tricks, then gets all shy when we come around for the same thing, starts squealing about how he doesn't want it just 'cause our dicks don't have enough stars. He can't get away with that shit forever. He should have expected a lesson like ours sooner or later._

_Jeffreys: Yeah. If we see him back on military grounds again, we're gonna finish what we started. If the slut likes being beaten up and fucked by a lot of men at once, then he deserves to get what he asks for._

The air had gone perfectly still around the two women: even Hawkeye's breath had nearly stopped by the time she finished the page. Immediately, her eyes shot back to the top again, and she re-read it, just to be sure she hadn't lost her mind. 

With a force of will, she managed to get her slow-building, gut horror under control, to approach the issue with her rational mind. Dispassionately. She was good at that. The disgust and shock and rage that clamored for her attention would not help Edward at all.

“Did you take down this conversation personally?” Riza asked, her voice only wavering a bit.

“I did.”

“I see,” she replied, leaning back in her chair. Her mind whirled through thoughts: the general couldn't have known about this. When he had requested that she find intelligence on this men, he hadn't mentioned anything about it – and while in other situations she would have assumed that he had just chosen not to say anything, she knew that these men would not be so alive and undamaged if General Mustang knew about this.

There was a silence as she thought. Then, after a moment, she said:

“Can I count on your absolute discretion, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir, absolutely,” she said, with fervor.

“Good. Don't mention this to anyone. If you find any more information on this topic, don't go through your superior in investigations – come straight to me.”

Astor nodded.

“Look for more information on their criminal histories. Let's see if we can get any more detail – if there's anything we can collect that would help us those people away for good, perhaps without dragging Edward's name into it.” That was probably the very last thing in the world Edward would want: for something like this to be made public in a trial. “Thank you for your hard work. You are dismissed,” Riza said, and the other woman gave a hard salute.

“Yes sir,” she said, before turning on her heel and walking out. As soon as she was out of sight, Hawkeye let her shoulders sink and turned her eyes back to the paper. Reading, again, through their faint justifications and blatant lies, the sickness in her stomach grew. Exactly what they had managed to do to him before he had escaped was unclear, although they had made it evident that they had not done all that they had intended to do.

But undirected emotion did no one any good, she reminded herself, and her pity would probably only infuriate Edward. In the end, she had to analyze the situation and make a decision. She had to do something, but she didn't want to overstep any boundaries, or pry into Edward's secrets. It was none of her business.

But it _was_ General Mustang's business. Whatever had happened, he should know – and based on what she had learned about the young man over the long years of their acquaintance, Edward was unlikely to tell. She would make a strong bet that he hadn't even told his brother.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, letting her eyes fall closed, glad for the quiet of the office on that bright Sunday afternoon.

She had a choice to make: she could wait for General Mustang's arrival and give him the folder, then deal with the fallout; or, she could tear off the last page and leave Edward's business to him, let him tell who he chose and not force him into anything he wasn't ready for. It was his private business.

The report loomed in front of her. She watched the clock.

*

General Mustang swept in through the quiet of the office as a lord through his domain, tall and proud and utterly confident. His hands were gloved, though not with the symbols of his office, and he smiled at Riza as he saw her.

“Ah, Major Hawkeye. Just the woman I wanted to see. How are you, this fine Sunday afternoon?”

His unrepentant cheer hit her like a blow, guilt settling in below her breast.

“I'm well, thank you,” she said, automatically. “And yourself?”

“Excellent, thank you. Really quite well.”

Riza gave him a questioning look: the general caught it automatically. 

“I spent the better part of the morning going through a gift that Edward left on my doorstep as an apology for his behavior. He gave me quite a large box full of novels and things like that, books that he picked out because he thought I might like them. I had no idea he was capable of being so thoughtful,” he said, fondly.

She forced herself to give him a small smile in return. 

“That does sound nice.”

Roy pulled up a chair to the other side of her desk and sat down there, resting his forearms and folded hands on the table, the look in his eyes distant but warm. Being in love was really a good look for him.

“Yes. Now, enough of my personal life, I believe we have some lessons to get started with,” he said, keeping his tone light, like nothing could disturb his good mood.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, knowing that she would receive no lessons that day. “But a few things first. We've received a response from Rebecca Daniels. She would only be too pleased to run an interview with you. She says that Monday evening – tomorrow – would be fine for her, which is the next time her show runs. She'll push back her other interviews so she can report on this in the most timely manner.”

The general's smile broadened at the good news: Rebecca Daniels was a good ally to have on one's side. A very popular young radio host, she had a deceptively sweet demeanor and a sharp mind, and had also gotten something of a reputation in the city's social networks due to her tendency to throw a really excellent party. Beyond that, Rebecca was an old girlfriend of Havoc's who he hadn't scared away entirely, and she had his vote of confidence. To all appearances, she could be counted on to report on current events fairly and intelligently. When this scandal was the talk of the town, she certainly wouldn't turn down and interview with the top newsmaker.

“Excellent. I'm happy to hear it.”

“Yes. We have reached agreements with a number of other potential political or social allies as well. Also, how is Edward?” she asked, trying not to let her voice betray anything. “After the attack, I mean.”

Roy's expression clouded, his cheer wavering, though he didn't yet let it fall.

“I don't really know. I don't know exactly what happened, as he is unwilling to talk to me about it. Or about anything, really. He's refused to see me alone, although he seems happy enough to see me with Alphonse.” He paused, looking as if he was about to say something, then thought better of it. After a moment, he continued. “All I know is that the attack was politically motivated, and that Edward was almost unable to defend himself, which must have been a strange and disturbing occurrence for him. I can't help but wonder if he blames me for it, and if that's the reason for his reluctance.”

She put a hand on the folder that sat to her left, almost ready to slide it in front of him, but not quite. 

“I doubt that very much,” she said, softly. “And I may be able to provide some insight into that. Second Lieutenant Astor has collected information for you on the attackers. There were four of them.”

The light in Roy's eyes grew sharp.

“Excellent. What were their names?”

“I could tell you, sir, but I think you had better read the report for yourself.”

She finally slid the folder over to him, and wished that she had another cup of coffee. Her last one had grown quite cold, but as he opened the folder and began to glance over its contents, she took a sip of it anyway. She heard the page turn. She waited. 

After a long moment, he looked up at her.

“Major Hawkeye,” he said, looking blank, too stunned to get his emotions in order. His voice, though, had frozen, grown cutting and deep. “Is this report accurate?”

“To the best of my knowledge, sir. Lieutenant Astor has proven herself a reliable source in the past. I would put faith in her abilities.”

With every word she spoke, the look on his face grew darker, his eyes harder.

“And,” he began, the iciness of his voice a thin veneer over the rage that she could see on every line of his face, “have you read this report?”

“I have, sir.” She wouldn't let his anger affect her. She had to be the calm one. She had to make the logical decisions: at that moment, he was entirely incapable of doing so. _Will he even listen to me?_

“And are you seeing the same thing here as I am?”

“Yes,” she said.

The Flame Alchemist stood, looming over her, and in that moment she remembered the fires of Ishbal, and his eyes, hardened against the scorching heat and the desecration and the smell of burning bodies.

“I am going to kill them,” he said. He didn't change his tone. The voice of cold rationality coated his fury. “I am going to burn them and listen to them scream. It will not be a quick death.”

Riza took a deep breath and got to her feet: she couldn't stay cold and dispassionate, couldn't pretend that this was about somebody else, that this had nothing to do with her – not with this man in front of her, an instrument of righteous fury, his heart filled with a burning need for vengeance. She couldn't let him do this.

He turned to the door.

“No, wait,” she called to him, pleading. “Don't go. Please, listen to me. Roy,” she said, like she hadn't in so many years. 

He turned back, and when he did, his brow was furrowed, his surprise briefly greater than his fury.

“What?” he asked, in his confusion. His name on her tongue – such a strange taste, unfamiliar. She steadied her resolve and pushed on.

“Roy,” she said again, hoping it would have an effect, “if you attack those men, if you hurt them, then you will undo everything you have worked for.” Emotion laced her every word, tightening her throat.

“I don't care.”

“Yes, you _do._ You will care tomorrow. The world will judge you for it. There are other ways.”

“Who are _you_ to tell me what to do?” he snapped, like the ice had finally broken under the force of his rage. “You're always so _collected._ I don't understand how you can be _calm_ about this. You must not feel things, like us ordinary humans do. Does this not bother you? Do you not care about it? About _Edward?_ ”

She wouldn't take that personally. He was furious, angrier than she had seen him in a long time. Maybe angrier than she had ever seen him. That knowledge didn't stop his words from hurting.

“I know you don't mean that. Of _course_ I care.” She took a breath: what could she possibly say? “But I'm not as close to it as you are. I can still see the big picture. We can't let everything you've ever done go to waste because you got angry. You still have things to do.”

“If I can't protect the people closest to me, how the hell do you think I'm going to be able to protect a country?” That was the first crack: she could see the pain and horror beneath his rage.

“The people close to you can protect themselves. I don't need to tell you that Edward is a very capable young man.”

“He shouldn't _have_ to protect himself. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't be in this situation – and if it weren't for _bastards_ like those pathetic excuses for human beings, he would never need to. I'll show them what happens when they fuck with _me_ and _mine._ ” And the crack closed again: he hardly even looked at her like he saw her. His eyes were focused far into the distance.

The man had grown immune to reason. She would use what weapons she had left to her.

“Don't you think that Edward would be upset if he knew you had given up all of your political ambitions on his account?” she said, her voice rising in volume with every word. “Don't you think he'd tell you that you're a damned idiot? This is probably why he didn't feel like he could tell you about his experience: he knew that you would go out and do something stupid.” She knew from the sudden clench of his eyes that her words had hurt him. “You _can not do_ that, sir.” He turned his cutting look on her: it burned, but still, she kept talking. “And if you try, I will stop you.”

She pulled her gun out of its holster and held it by her shoulder, pointed toward the ceiling. There was a deep, crackling silence.

“If you shot me, you would be arrested for attacking a superior officer.” His tone was even, but cold.

“If it stopped you from leaving this room right now, it would be worth it. I would go down, but in the service of my cause. You can't forget – you are so much _more_ than just yourself,” she said, her passion and her pain choking her voice. “Your life isn't yours to do with as you please. And neither is mine.”

He stood frozen, speechless in his shock, eyes wide and locked on her. The surface cracked away, piece by piece.

“If you were just Roy Mustang, then maybe I wouldn't stop you. But you're not. You are hope for this country. It doesn't know it yet, but you are. You represent the rule of just law. Those men have done a horrible thing, but you have always been about _justice,_ not vengeance. And it would be vengeance you would be delivering today. If the law only applies to you when you want it to, what makes you better than the men you're trying to fight? Better than General Weimar? Fuhrer Hakuro? Fuhrer _Bradley?_ ” That one rung painfully in his ears. “But you _are_ better than them. I know that. So please, General.” Another breath, cool and sharp on her lips. “Sit down.”

He watched her, and the last cracked shard of his fury fell away, and she saw then how much it had been supporting him as much as armoring him. His face wrinkled, like he was in pain: of course he was. He turned back to her, took the few staggering steps forward, and fell back into his chair, letting his head pitch forward to catch it in his palms, his elbows supporting them both on his knees.

“You're right,” he said. “You're always right. I can't do anything.” She moved in front of him, leaned back on the front of her desk. “I feel so... impotent. So helpless.” He gave a laugh that was nothing like happy. “And if _I_ feel helpless, then what must Ed have felt like?” He raised his face to look at her, as if he thought she might have answers. “Why didn't he tell me?”

“I think you know the answer to that. When has Edward ever told anyone about the things that really bother him, unprovoked? Especially if he thought you would worry. Or be angry at him.”

That seemed to surprise Roy.

“Angry? Why would I be _angry_ at him about this?”

“You know that Edward isn't always very rational when it comes to himself. You had been angry at him very shortly before. Maybe he didn't want to risk it again. But even more than that,” she began, carefully: she did not want to presume. She never could. “I think that victims of these sorts of crimes often react with shame.”

Roy let his head fall forward again, resting his face in his hands, covering his eyes.

“I guess this would explain why he hasn't wanted me to touch him.”

“I expect so,” she said, wanting to reach out to touch him on the shoulder – but she didn't. She never did.

“Do you think – that he's alright?”

“I think that no one can answer that better than Edward himself.”

Roy straightened up in his chair. He looked tousled and tired, like the thirty minutes since he had entered had been an age, but he stood.

“You're right again, of course. Thank you, Major,” he said, his voice quavering, but only barely. “I have to go see him now. For a minute there, I was so worried about dealing with _those_ men that I almost forgot about the one who actually needs me.” He got to his feet, then put out a hand to touch her arm, to squeeze it gently. He favored her with a small smile, though it was just as tired as his eyes. “Really. Thank you. You're a better person than I am.”

“I'm certain that's not true,” she said, his hand on her arm strange, foreign, but not unwelcome. “But you're welcome regardless.”

“Alright. I'm going to go see to him.”

She nodded wordlessly.

“For now, wait for my orders. But rest assured, I haven't forgotten,” he said, words turning to a growl in his throat. “We'll get those fuckers, one way or another.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, clicking her heels together and shooting her hand up into a salute. 

As Roy swung around and strode towards the door, a pang hit her, of the kind that came every so often when she watched him: jealousy, faint but real, rare and unpredictable. General Mustang slammed the door between them as he left, and she swept the feeling away. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do actually listen to the things you guys say. I definitely added some content to this chapter because of a surprisingly common comment/(critique?) I received last chapter. If it was one of yours, you probably can guess as much :)
> 
> Anyway, your comments are the only things between me and a lonely death, starving in the arctic, to be fed on by wolves. No but seriously, you guys are the reason I'm doing this, and hearing from you always makes my day. Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely almost did not make my deadline for this chapter. I rewrote almost literally everything in it. And I really wanted to include some stuff about what Weimar's been up to this whole time, but the chapter finally clocked in at nearly 15,000 words _before_ adding this storyline, which is kind of absurd. I didn't want to make it any longer than that. Sorry! The fact that I'm juggling so many storylines sometimes means that one must be neglected briefly to attend to others.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has been so kind and supportive so far!

Chapter 8

*

It was Alphonse who finally made the first real progress in the investigation, through a combination of clever determination and a network he had never quite realized that he had. Sometimes, you could do all the hard work in the world and it wouldn't matter if you didn't know the right person – but luckily, he knew a lot of people. Some digging around had revealed that one of the teenagers he had met in Youswell all of those years ago was now working in the Central Bank, and it only took a little bit more effort to track the man down, ascertain his work schedule, and burst into his office. As he did, the force of the door slamming open sent a number of papers shooting off of their resting places on shelves or desks and into the air to flutter down noisily onto the floor.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Al, surprised: the office's occupant looked over at him from his position behind his loaded desk with a wide-eyed look, thick brows raised in surprise. The younger Elric crouched down immediately to start picking up the errant papers. “I didn't mean to mess up your work. I mean – um, do these go anywhere special?” he asked, when he looked at them to find that they seemed to have no relation to each other whatsoever – but then, they could have come from different piles.

The man stood up and was over to him in a second, taking the bunch of papers from Al's hands as the alchemist got to his feet.

“I'll take care of it,” the banker said with a tired smile. “Don't worry about it. It happens all the time.”

“...Does it?” He picked up one last paper and handed it to the other. “Not, I suppose, that it's any of my business, but maybe if you actually filed them instead of just letting them sit around on your tables, things like that would happen less often?” Al suggested, watching the man turn and carefully begin putting the papers back in their appropriate piles.

“Maybe,” the man said, as if he didn't even really hear Alphonse's suggestion. Once done, he turned back to his visitor. “In any case, what brings you here today? I don't remember having an appointment, and it _is_ a Sunday,” he noted, tone perhaps a bit accusatory.

There was a moment before Al responded, in which he examined the man for a moment: he wore a suit and the immaculately groomed mustache of a well-to-do city slicker that did little to hide the boyishness of the face underneath.

“Your accent has changed,” said Al, with a bit of a smile, searching out the boy he had known under all of the new layers. “I guess that happens when you leave your small town to go to school and get a job in the big city, huh?”

“Uh, I didn't come from a small town,” the banker said, pinking at the tip of his nose. “I'm a Central City man, born and bred. What would make you say something like that?”

That reply made Al give a “Hm” of amusement.

“You know, there's no need to pretend anything for me. I hardly mind – I'm from a small town too. Smaller than yours, actually. In fact, “town” might even be stretching it a little,” he added, with a laugh. “Besides, I know you. You and I met a few times when you were still living in Youswell.”

That earned a confused frown, brow wrinkling as it pulled low over his eyes.

“I'm sorry, sir. This may be inexcusably rude of me, but I don't remember you at all.”

“You're Graham Haskell, right?” he asked, just to make sure, though he was fairly certain he recognized the face. He had a great memory for faces. “I'm Alphonse Elric,” he said, clasping his hands to his front and giving the other man a small bow. “It's nice to see you again.”

There was a second of silence, where Graham studied him, his confusion turning to bewilderment.

“Alphonse Elric?” he asked, slowly. “You're Alphonse Elric? You mean, Fullmetal's brother?”

“That's right,” said Al, smiling, waiting for the inevitable questions.

“But you're so much... _smaller_ than I remember,” he said, and for a second Al felt an acute sympathy for Edward and his rage at the the constant short jokes. His eyebrow twitched, but he kept his smile pasted on.

“Ah, yes, well – I was wearing an enormous suit of armor at the time. I look pretty different now.”

“I'll say!” Graham replied. “Oh, um – sorry, I'm a terrible host. Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the nearest chair. He realized after a moment that it was covered in papers, so he scrambled over to take them off and set them on the floor. Alphonse took the offered seat moments afterward and folded his hands in his lap as the other man sat down in his own chair. “I just – I'm surprised. You look like you would drown in that thing even now – and the last time I saw you was three years ago! I have to know – how did you move that thing? It was, what, eight feet tall?”

“Something like that. It was sort of like a puppet that I worked from the inside,” Al said, which was actually kind of true. 

“But... _why?_ ”

“I was doing a lot of dangerous stuff back then. It kept me safe. Plus, it was really strong, actually,” Al said. This conversation was well-worn and familiar for him: he had worked out all of his answers shortly after his return to his body, and had parroted off his script a number of times since his return, although not really as often as he would have expected. Most of the people who had been his friends while he had been in armor had ended up finding out about his unusual state, so they needed no explanation when he showed up in Central one day in the flesh. As for the people who hadn't known, Al guessed that by the time that most of them realized that the wide-eyed brunette boy attached to Edward Elric's hip and the enormous armor that had also been attached to Edward at the hip were one and the same, it was probably too late for them to politely ask about it.

“I guess that makes sense,” he said, almost reluctantly. “But that still doesn't explain why you never took it off!”

Al laughed. The amusing thing about all of his answers to these questions is that they all had quite a bit of truth to them.

“Brother was paranoid that I might get hurt. He wouldn't let me come with him on his adventures if I wasn't wearing something that would protect me all the time. He's that sort of guy, you know. Always putting other people before himself.”

Graham sobered as he nodded in response to that.

“And a little bit paranoid, apparently.”

“Maybe a little,” Al replied with a smile.

“Hm. But yeah, I getcha,” he said, going back in a moment to his old Youswell accent. To tell the truth, Al liked it better than the man's forced Central accent – it was more honest. “So, uh, how's that brother of yours holding up? With everything, I mean,” he asked, words finding their ways out awkwardly. As embarrassing and annoying as it was, it was also nice to not have to explain everything.

“Um, better some days than others,” said Al, because there was definitely such a thing as too much honesty, and it was a line that his brother crossed often. “It's been pretty tough.”

Graham nodded, twirling a pen around on his table, the nib prodding delicately into his fingertip.

“So, is any of the stuff they've been saying true?” he asked. Al was prepared for this question, too. He gave his standard reply, in as little detail as he could possibly manage.

“I see. That makes more sense than the newspaper version,” the banker replied, after Al had finished. “I have trouble believing that the guy I met in Youswell would let himself be manipulated like that. He was a tough kid.” There was a brief pause: the man watched Al closely. “So the papers are making up stories – I guess to get General Mustang in trouble? And they're pulling Ed into it.”

“Exactly,” Al replied. “And on that note, I'm here for a favor,” he said, soft brown eyes locking on Graham's with an earnestness that was half genuine and at least half for show. “There's this man who we really think is behind all of this: another one of the generals who really has it in for General Mustang. His name is General Weimar, and we think – I mean, General Mustang's investigations team and I think – that he paid the reporter to write these stories, but we have no way to prove it. I'm doing my own investigation, but I need access to the bank records to see if there's anything out-of-the-ordinary in either man's account. It could be just the thing we need to get Weimar held accountable for what he's done.”

Graham leaned back and crossed his arms, rocking a bit as he lifted the front two legs of his chair off of the ground and set them down again. He wrinkled his nose a bit, thinking. After a moment, he replied:

“You know, if there really is something shady going on, it'll be pretty hard to find. The general could just have withdrawn cash from his account for a nonspecific purpose, then deposited it into the reporter's account at another bank branch, and there wouldn't be any connection visible in the accounts. And if he's as much of an asshole as you seem to think he is, he easily could have bribed a banker into messing with the records to show the money delivered from another source or sources, in various amounts. Or, he could just have handed the guy the cash and let him keep it under his mattress or something.”

Al nodded.

“Of course. I wasn't expect you to hand me a record showing a direct transfer of five hundred thousand cenz from Weimar's account into Guy Harriet's or anything. I don't think Weimar's stupid enough to do something like that. I don't think he's stupid enough to let himself be seen with Harriet, either, to hand him the cash; normally I'd say that he could have let a subordinate handle the cash transfer, except that I somehow doubt that he's let any subordinates in on this. It would be too dangerous if anybody blabbed, and anybody he trusted enough to know about his activities would probably be recognizable, and he wouldn't want his name anywhere near this.” He hoped he wasn't giving Weimar too much credit: if he was, then he could be running full-tilt down a dead-end street. The only thing he could do at this point, however, was trust his instincts. He continued on. “So I think it was probably a bank transfer, not cash – or that's what I'm working off of, anyway. But if you provide me with information on any suspicious additions into Harriet's account, I'm willing to do the legwork to see if the inflow is genuine or not.”

The other man kicked his feet up on his desk and raised his eyebrows.

“You know that what you're asking me to do is really very illegal, right?”

The smile Al returned was beatific, serene. 

“So is transmuting coal into gold,” he replied, pointedly, his angelic expression never fading. The other man's expression grew wry – he hadn't missed Al's point. Many years ago, now, Edward's willingness to break laws in service of the greater good had saved Graham's town and the people in it.

“Touché,” he said, sounding more amused than anything, to Al's relief. The man sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Alright, I'll see what I can do for you.” He stood up, then, and crossed the room: Al took that as his cue and stood as well. Graham extended his hand, and then said:

“It was nice to finally get to meet you properly, Alphonse Elric.” Al took the other man's hand in his own and shook it.

“You too,” he said, happily. “Thanks for doing this for us.”

“Well, I kind of owe you and that brother of yours both. It's the least I could do.”

“Well, after this, we'll call it even.”

Graham got a little twist to his mouth when he heard that.

“Alphonse, when I save your whole town, we can call it even, and not before.”

“Well then, how about we say that the business in Youswell was a free service, and we'll call your favor an 'unrelated gift,'” Al replied, grinning: that phrase was the very one that had allowed Edward – fifteen years old, completely full of himself, and too snarky for his own good most of the time – to save the town and give them the push they needed to get up on their feet again and get going.

That reply took a moment to process – then, the banker gave a booming laugh and clapped Alphonse on the shoulder.

“You're a clever one, Alphonse Elric. You know that?”

“I like to think so,” Al said, lightly. “But I guess time will tell, won't it?”

*

The bright beauty of that Sunday afternoon that had buoyed Roy's spirits on his walk to Hawkeye's office felt oppressive, nearly painful, as he returned the way he had come. The sunlight was too bright in his eyes, the sound of the wind too loud, and all of the life being lived busily around him only made the space at Roy's side feel emptier than it had in a long time. Over the years since his best friend's death, he had become accustomed to the burning absence in his life in the shape of Maes Hughes: on the good days, he almost didn't notice it anymore. On the bad, he missed the man to the point of aching.

Today was of the latter: there were some things a man couldn't be expected to deal with alone, and this was one of them. He would have given anything to hear the man's voice, to listen to his friendly advice. That had been Hughes's position, his purpose: he was confidante and adviser, comforter and reality check. No one else in his life could do that for him, now. Hawkeye kept herself too distant, too professional, to ever be that person for him, and none of Roy's other subordinates could even come close. When he had a problem, oftentimes the best thing he could do was muddle through himself. 

Sometimes, now, Edward played that role for him – but when the problem in question was Edward – 

Edward, and Roy's colossal mistake. Edward, and a situation gone far out of hand. Edward, and four men in an alleyway – four men that Roy _couldn't_ burn to fucking cinders, no matter how much he wanted to.

Edward, and all those things that Roy had said to him that night, that had distressed him so much that he had gone out drinking – _and why drinking, anyway?_ he wondered: that was strange, for Edward. He tried to go through the younger man's thought process, trying to remain detached, composed, as he examined it. Alcohol had never been Ed's preferred method for dealing with his problems. But – gears moved, then clicked into place as his feet carried him forward, eyes cast down and a gentle wind fluttering across his face. 

When he thought about it, it actually made sense, in a twisted sort of way. Edward's own methods of stress relief and problem-solving had backfired, repeatedly: he had probably been looking for something else. A friendly bottle of whiskey or scotch might not have been Ed's coping mechanism, but it _was_ Roy's. If Ed had been out drinking, it was probably only because he had learned his bad habits from the best.

Roy groaned and pressed a gloved hand up over his eyes, digging fingers into his skin like it could relieve some of the – the tension, the _awful_ feeling inside of him. Headquarters crawled past him in a blur of colors and half-heard sounds as he left his second-in-command behind him, at her desk, as he left all of his responsibilities on her shoulders and went to try to bandage up all of the wounds he had caused.

_God, I wish you were here, Maes. You'd know what to do. You'd give me the best goddamn advice a man could get and then you'd give me that smile –_

His throat clenched, his thoughts almost too much to repress. It had been his fault that Edward had thought to go out drinking, his fault that Edward had been upset enough to go out drinking in the first place, his fault that Ed had left the bar alone and intoxicated – 

All of those things he had said to Edward that night... They were all true, but maybe if he had been thinking straight, he would have been more careful with his choice of words. Sometimes he forgot just how much of an effect such things could have on his young lover.

Some bitter part of Roy thought that it wasn't fair that _he_ always had to keep his temper, that it was _him_ who always had to be careful with his words and actions – Edward was _never_ careful with what he said, Edward was loud and crass and sometimes vicious, intentionally or not. Why wasn't he, like Edward, allowed to get angry and say what he meant? Why were _his_ mistakes so unforgivable?

 _Because you have power, General,_ he reminded himself, sharp. _You have power in the world, and you have power over him: he freely gave you that power, and you have to use it wisely. You don't get power without a responsibility to the people you have power over. You know that better than anyone._

But the real bitterness of it was that it was Edward who had been punished for the things that Roy had done, and the real irony was that it was _because_ of his power and responsibility that he couldn't do anything at all about the whole situation.

Harsh thoughts cut cleanly through the mess of his emotions as he took to the street, walking in a well-remembered path, motion automatic:

_You're a smart man. You know that the only people who can take blame for this are the men who attacked him. If you're at fault for this because you were the reason he went to that place, then Edward is at fault for going, and Havoc is at fault for giving him those drinks... But all of those things are ridiculous, and you know they're not true._

_But why didn't he tell me?_ The hurt was automatic, almost quiet, and yet overwhelming. _After everything we've been through together, after everything I've done for him, does he still not trust me?_

_God, does he blame me?_

_Don't be stupid. When has Ed ever blamed anyone else for anything that was really important? Of course he doesn't._

_Don't you dare make this about you, you vain, self-centered bastard. This is about Edward, about helping **him** , not about indulging in your delusion that everything in the world centers around you._

The rush of a car past him reminded him of the world outside his head: glancing to the side, he saw a taxi slowing down at a yellow light, then stopping. He waved at the driver, who motioned for Roy to get in: he did, and gave the man the Elrics' address. It wouldn't be long, now. A glance at his pocketwatch: four-thirteen. Hopefully Edward would be back from the lab by now. He didn't want this conversation to happen in a laboratory setting. They needed privacy, needed a room where they could talk without distractions, without an audience, without escape route. Edward, who never ran from anything he could see, was so good at escaping conversations, avoiding topics... 

He knew that he had to be calm, had to be a rock for Edward in this storm. But – he was still so _angry,_ bursting with that same impotent rage that had consumed him when Hawkeye had first given him the news. He swallowed it, practicing the control he so prided himself on.

_God, Maes: if you're listening, if you're out there, please help me do this right._

The paper, folded crisply, burned a hole in his pocket.

*

The afternoon had been the loveliest that Al could remember since spring: temperate, with a cool breeze, it was still warm enough to go out in short sleeves and yet cool enough that one could enjoy the sunshine without ever feeling hot. It was one of those days when one would almost have to be convinced not to go outdoors. Al himself had made a compromise between inside and outside: he had thrown every door and window in the house open to let in the crisp smell of fall, which somehow made his cleaning activities much more pleasant. Not that he ever minded cleaning, but listening to lilting birdsong strain in from outdoors as he scrubbed the floors made everything much more pleasant.

Getting down on his hands and knees with a bucket of water and some gloves was hardly brain work, but it was somehow satisfying in a way that few other things could be: repetitive, rhythmic, it calmed the part of his brain given to over-thinking, to worrying. With everything that had been happening, that part of him had been working overtime recently. The worst part of it was that sometimes it seemed like the only thing he _could_ do was worry.

He picked the sponge up from the floor and put it in the bucket, swishing it around in the bubbly liquid to get the worst of the dirt off before wringing it out gently and taking the scrubbing side of the sponge to a mysterious black mark in the grout.

Cleaning was also a great time to think, to mull over what he had learned. Although Graham hadn't gotten back to him with information about those bank accounts yet, it had only been a few hours, and he could wait. In the meantime, he had made a few trips, and tried, at least, to learn some things.

His brief research on General Weimar had taught him very little, though : the man was clever, if a bit vicious, and had a few loyal men of his own. If others' descriptions of him were anything to go by, he seemed to enjoy politics in much the same way that Roy did, treating people as chess pieces in a great social game. The difference was that Roy could see his chess pieces as human beings as well, and Al didn't know if this was true of General Weimar, as well.

At the very least, he had a wife who seemed to be quite devoted to him, and he had no shortage of friends among the major and brigadier generals. Whether or not he cared for his subordinates was a different question, though. He seemed to have a strong sense of his own moral rectitude, and seemed to be religious, although whether he was a true believer or if it was just lip-service was up in the air.

In any case, the man seemed to be out to be a dictator in the classic sense, and one became a dictator by discrediting your enemies through any means possible, or sometimes killing them. Weimar seemed to have chosen the former – at least for the moment.

However, the means he had chosen had just hurt two people that Al held very dear to him, in ways that he understood and probably also in ways that he didn't even know, and no amount of sparkling on his military record would make Al any less angry. He could see that, because of that man, Ed's and Roy's relationship was struggling under all of the weights that kept being piled on them. And more than that, Edward himself...

Taking a deep breath, he picked up his sponge again, washed it, wrung it out. He was calm: he was happy. The weather was beautiful, and the birds were singing. He focused on this for a moment, then, once he had calmed, began the long task of scrubbing the edge of the tile, under the cabinets. Dirt had collected, as dirt does, in the crack between the wall and the floor, and Al made a face: the fact that he had let it get so bad was really a testament to how distracted he had been recently.

Distracted, in part, by his brother's strange behavior. Not knowing what was wrong with Ed bothered him enough under normal circumstances. _Not_ , he thought ruefully, _that our circumstances are ever what one might call “normal.”_ But in any case, Ed was acting strange even by Ed standards. 

What could have disturbed his brother so much?

The sharp ring of the telephone roused him from his thoughts. He sprang to his feet on instinct, and moved to get it. 

“Hello?” he said. Over the past week or two, he had gradually stopped saying “Elric residence” when answering the phone: there could always be a reporter on the other end, and if there was, he didn't want them to be sure of who they had called. But that possibility was ruled out as soon as he heard the voice that blasted through the speaker.

“Alphonse Elric, I have a word or two to have with you!” she said, and oh god, it was Winry, and she sounded mad.

“Uh, Winry! Hi! I – I was just getting ready to call you, actually,” he said, voice coming out all stammery and embarrassing. “How have you been?”

“Don't you lie to me, Alphonse Elric. You weren't about to call me. You haven't called me in a week and a half.”

Crap. No, he hadn't – between how busy he had been trying to keep the lab running while doing investigative stuff and the fact that he wanted Winry to stay out of this, he had managed to not speak to her for quite a while. He knew that he couldn't lie to her, so the best option was just to avoid the problem. 

“R-really? I thought for sure it had only been –” 

“You know exactly what you've been doing! You've been trying to keep me from knowing about any of the things that have been happening recently. You've been trying to protect me for my own good, haven't you?” Her voice had reached a volume at which he could no longer hold the telephone up to his ear without a serious risk of hearing damage. 

He should have known that even Winry's indifference to national politics and to the content of the newspapers wouldn't keep her out of this forever. She had probably seen the photo on the front page of the paper as somebody read it, stolen their newspaper, and then clocked them upside the head with her wrench for ever even reading something so ridiculous. Her fuming was almost visible even through the telephone.

“Yes ma'am! I mean, no, of course not!” he said, cringing at the way she made him babble, and of _course_ she wasn't going to believe him if he sounded so stupid. “I just – you know how worried you get over things like this!”

“And you think that's a good enough reason to keep me in the dark? You should be ashamed of yourself. You tell me you always want to know what's going on in my life, and then you won't tell me what's happening in yours? You, Alphonse Elric, are a hypocrite.”

“I'm sorry! I just – I know you don't like hearing about Ed and the General, and you don't like it when Ed's hurting, and I didn't want you to have to hurt any more.”

“So you would rather me find out from seeing that photograph? If you had told me, I might not have had to see it.”

“If I had told you, you would have immediately gone and hunted down a copy of that paper just to see if it was as bad as I say,” Al pointed out. “And don't try to tell me you wouldn't.”

Also, though he wouldn't say it out loud, he secretly didn't want Ed to be their primary topic of conversation. Sometimes he still wondered... but that was a dangerous train of thought to follow, and he would find nothing good at the end of it. She was with him, not Ed, and he had to trust that she didn't regret that. He cut the thought off before it could go any further.

“Why would I do that?”

He gave a little smile, the wind fluttering through his open windows and across his face.

“Because you're too curious to not want answers about something like that. Wouldn't it just drive you crazy, knowing there was something out there you didn't know, and that you could find out so easily?”

She paused for a moment, thinking.

“I guess you're probably right,” she said, sounding resigned. “But that doesn't make it any better that you didn't tell me about any of this. You did it the whole time you and your brother were off trying to get your bodies back, and it hurt that you wanted to keep me out then, and it hurts a little now, too.”

Al deflated.

“I'm sorry, Winry. I just wanted you to not hurt, you know?” he said, softly. “I just like it when you're happy. You're prettiest when you smile.”

There was a beat of quiet, during which Winry was probably blushing to hear him say something like that, he guessed, because Al was blushing at having said it.

“Oh. I, uh,” she said, stumbling for her train of thought. “Thank you?” Another beat. When she spoke again, she had lost all of that flustered cuteness and sounded stern again. “But, don't ever let me catch you doing it again.” 

“Uh, yes ma'am!” he said, snapping to attention out of instinct and wondering for a moment if it was normal to call your girlfriend “ma'am.” _Well, Brother probably thinks so,_ he thought, then immediately recoiled from the image that brought up. _Oh, ew, ew – why am I always in situations where I have to spend any time at all thinking about my brother's sex life?_ But then, without warning, he was thinking about “Winry” and “sex life” in the same sentence, and then he was flushing up to his ears. He was very suddenly glad that she wasn't there at that moment, because he had started thinking about her well-muscled stomach and arms and other parts too and it was eliciting uncomfortable reactions in him that he just didn't know how to deal with. If he could have spoken, he would have stammered, and that would have been embarrassing, so he stayed quiet for the moment.

“Good,” she said, with an air of finality. “And don't forget it.” She paused, as Alphonse dragged his thoughts away from the inconvenient course they were taking. “But I also missed talking to you, Al,” she said, much more genuinely.

“I-I missed talking to you, too,” he said, his blush unabated. 

“How is Ed?” she asked. He took a breath, then gathered up what remained of his thoughts and managed to speak like a normal person.

“He's having a hard time of it, I think. Of course, he would never say so. But I think he's really worried, and he's been acting kinda weird lately.”

“I see,” she said. “And how are you holding up?”

“I'm worried about him, of course. The general, too. This whole card house his team has been building up for years could collapse if this stuff keeps going the way it has. If the top card falls, it'll destroy everything else they've done, too. That's worrisome. Ed doesn't want to be the person who destroys the general's political ambitions.”

“He's such an idiot. Even if that did happen, it wouldn't be his fault,” she said, with such harshness that Al wished he could put a hand out to comfort her – but the barrier of distance was a powerful one. “In any case, I'm coming up to Central today,” she continued, in a way that left no real room for argument. Then, more playfully: “You two obviously can't manage without me. I thought you might need some moral support.”

Al smiled at the thought, then sighed as reality checked in: as much as he would love it, a visit from her wasn't really practical at that moment. He was going to have to argue with her no-arguing voice. He hated having to do that.

“I always need moral support from you, and it wouldn't hurt Ed either. But what about your apprenticeship? Won't Mr. Garfiel be mad at you?”

“No, not at all. We have some regular customers who live in Central, and a lot of times they're willing to pay a little bit more money to get their regular maintenance taken to them rather than having to come to us. Mr. Garfiel usually does it, but I asked if I could do it from now on. I mean, if that's okay,” she said, suddenly sounding nervous and embarrassed.

Al paused, thinking. On the one hand, _yes_ he would _love_ for her to come up to Central – they would have fun, and he would have somebody to hug when he was feeling scared or unhappy. He couldn't talk to Brother about any of those weird feelings, because then Ed would just worry more, and he had enough on his place to begin with. Winry could be that person, for him to talk things over with, a comforting breast to rest his head on – _no, nope, not going there,_ he reprimanded himself.

On the other hand – 

“As appealing as that sounds, I think it might actually be best for you to stay out of Central for the moment, actually,” he said, deciding that the direct, honest approach was probably best. “It's been – kind of awful here, you know? I don't want you to have to get into the middle of this.”

“Well, tough. I'm going to anyway.”

The laugh Al gave in response was fond.

“That's such a you thing to say, Winry. And I really appreciate your offer – I do! I just – you'd probably get badgered by reporters too, and somebody would find a way to shoehorn you into a story, and then you'd just feel bad, and it would be bad all around. But, uh,” he continued, biting his lower lip in the space between his words. His mind worked around an earlier idea, stirring it, waiting for it to form properly. “I actually do have an idea of what you could do to help, and unfortunately, it would involve you staying out of Central for at least the next week and a half, or so.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding startled, as if that was the last thing she expected. “You're letting me help? ...You're not trying to protect me, are you?”

“Really really, I always let you help when there's something I think you can do, and of course not, in that order,” he said. “But let me explain.”

He went over his plan in as much detail as he could muster, making some things up as he went along, accompanied by the occasional noise of consideration and interrupted by an occasional question. It didn't take long to get her fully on board.

“Right,” she said once he had finished, all of her uncertainty gone, replaced with all of that confident determination that he loved so much about her. “Then that's what I'll do. I'll see you in a week and a half or so. Then she paused, but right before Al opened his mouth to continue, she said. “So... those two are really in trouble, aren't they?” 

“Yeah. They really are.”

“Stupid boys. If they were just more normal and less... stupid, then none of this would be a problem.”

“If they were more normal, they wouldn't be half so interesting,” Al replied, twisting the phone cord around his finger.

“They could probably do with a little less 'interesting' right now. The whole country is _interested_ in them,” she said, with maybe a twist of bitterness in her emphasis on that word. 

“Probably, yeah. But I think we've got it under control.”

“If you say so,” she said, thoughtful. Then, after a moment: “I really do miss you, you know.” Al's chest warmed at the words, and so did his face.

“I miss you too, Winry,” he said, in a tiny voice – he used to say it all the time when he saw her in between their travels when they were younger, but it was different now, somehow. It wasn't that what he meant now was any different than what he had meant back then, but she heard it, now, and that was somehow both embarrassing and thrilling. Then, to break the sudden openness of the moment, said, in a bit of a rush: “The, uh – the weather's been so beautiful here. I can't wait for you to come up. There are all kinds of things I want us to do. I found a great kebab stand in a square on the north side of the city. I'm really excited to take you there.”

“Aw, that's sweet. You know I'm not a big kebab fan.”

“I know, I know – but their kebabs are _different._ They kebab strawberries and steak together! How could that not be amazing?” 

Winry laughed.

“You get excited about the funniest things,” she said, fondly. “It does sound pretty delicious though.”

Of course he got excited about food and smells and things that might seem normal to everybody else. He had gone so long without getting to taste apples or smell rain that such small delights were no longer things he had the privilege of taking for granted.

“Me, excited about funny things? This from the girl who nearly fainted when she saw the new wrench design from Elliot's Automail,” he countered, gently teasing.

“Hey, I'll have you know that that was called a ratchet, and it was the most important development in automail creation in the past year at least! You don't have to take the wrench off of the bolt anymore to keep screwing it in! It's really streamlined my process. And it's extendable, so it's long enough to get into those hard-to-reach places and also collapses into a conveniently tiny package for easy storage or transport!” she said, speeding up and pitching higher as she went under the sheer force of her enthusiasm. 

“That does sound amazing,” Al replied, smiling, as if she hadn't told him before. He didn't mind. She was cute when she got excited.

“Are you making fun of me?” she asked, though really, it was more like a growled declaration of intent than a question.

“No, no! Of course not! I really honestly like hearing you get excited about things. I wasn't making fun at all. I think it's cute.”

“Oh,” she said, like she was honestly surprised by this. “You're, um, complimenting me a lot today.”

“Am I? I guess I have a week of not talking to you to make up for.”

She giggled a little at that, and Al felt his heart warming.

“You're sweet, do you know that?” she said.

“I'm glad you think so,” he replied, happily.

“Yeah. I do.” A pause. “Okay, if I'm not going to Central, I should really get back to work here. I should probably deliver this leg casing I'm making by tomorrow morning, and I'm only about a quarter of the way into it.”

“Okay. That sounds good. I have some things I need to finish here, too. Enjoy yourself!”

“Will do. I'll talk to you soon?” Then, pointedly: “Sooner than it was this past time?”

“Of course,” he replied, smiling. They said their goodbyes, then hung up, leaving Al high on nothing but endorphins and affection. The thought of her visit, and what they might do on her visit, left him with a fluttery, nice feeling in his stomach. He wished it could be under different circumstances, but they might even get to kiss again, and they could celebrate together when all of this stupid stuff blew over.

He leaned over the counter, propped up on his elbows and staring into space, drifting in and out of unusually detailed and specific daydreams which may or may not have included getting to brush Winry's hair, until the sound of his front door slamming open cracked through his reverie.

Unsurprisingly, the source of the slam was one Edward Elric, returned from the lab. The man stalked into the living room and tossed his jacket over the back of the couch.

“Oh, hello, Brother,” he said, briefly irritated at himself for not noticing whether his brother had used the key or alchemy to get in. He had been working on training Ed to use the key, but it was a long and slow process. Ed had none of a dog's natural urge to please, so unlike with a dog, praise did little, though treats did sometimes help. “You're home early. I thought you would be at the lab longer.”

“Nah. I was done with the stuff I needed to do,” his brother said, not even bothering to kick off his shoes before stomping into the kitchen. He looked sort of irritated, or bothered by something, but Al didn't even ask. He knew that his brother probably wouldn't answer. “How has your day been?” 

“It's been excellent, actually. My piano lessons went beautifully, and then I got to clean!” he said, entirely leaving out the part of his day dedicated to sleuthing. He didn't want Ed to have to think about that stuff any more than he already did. 

Ed gave him a look full of fond disbelief and shook his head.

“I can see that,” he said, with some amusement, and Al realized suddenly that he still had his dirty cleaning gloves on, and had been touching everything with them. “You know, you're the only person I've ever met who's crazy enough to actually enjoy cleaning stuff. I really don't understand freaks like you,” he said, swinging cabinet doors open and rustling around between the bags and boxes of food for something to eat. He seemed to decide on a box of hard tack biscuits, and opened it up to grab as many as he could in each hand before turning back around to face Al.

“You don't get to call _me_ a freak when you're the one who will eat anything that fits in your mouth,” he said, eying the hard tack in disgust. “I don't understand how you eat those things. They're awful. They're beyond the scope of awfulness. They're literally just flour and water, mixed together, then left out to dry! That's it!”

Ed shoved a whole one into his mouth and started chewing.

“Yeah, but they're easy as fuck to eat, they last forever, and I don't have to cook 'em,” Ed replied, around his food, even though he knew how much Al hated people chewing with their mouths full. He swallowed his biscuit, then grinned at his little brother's obvious discomfort. “That's all I really want out of a food.”

“I bet you just have no taste buds left. You probably burned them off drinking all of that scalding hot coffee. God help you if I have to put burn medicine on your tongue ever again.” Al said, taking off his gloves and setting them on the counter.

“Hey, even if I have burned some off, I have enough taste buds left for an army of normal people. But even the best coffee is godawful, so you gotta drink it all at once, like a shot: no point in waiting. It's not ever going to taste any better.” Ed hopped up to sit on the countertop.

“It seems to me that there's a point to waiting. _I_ have never had to apply burn ointment to my tongue.”

“Well, no, but you also don't have to wait to drink your hot leaf water. You cool it down with milk, but _yech,_ ” he said, making a face that was really quite descriptive. “That just makes coffee even more disgusting than it was before. And you know I hate waiting for shit.”

“One of these days, I'll teach you patience,” Al said, though he really had little hope of that. “And to not sit on the kitchen countertops, it's not sanitary. And to use the key in the front door.”

“Hey, my ass ain't any dirtier than the rest of me,” he said, swinging his legs so that the heels of his shoes hit the cabinet doors with loud thunks. “'Mnot hurting anything by being up here. And one of these days, I'll teach _you_ to pick your battles.”

Al sighed dramatically.

“Brother, I do pick my battles. If I didn't, we would be fighting _all the time._ Also, if 'picking my battles' were a lesson I needed to learn, you would be absolutely the last person I'd go to to teach me. You are _horrible_ at it.”

Ed grinned, then shoved another biscuit in his mouth.

“C'mon, you know you love me.”

“Only when you chew with your mouth closed and don't talk while you're doing it,” he said, sternly.

“I bet it's stressful, being you, and being worried about all of these little things all the time.”

“I don't have to worry about things like chewing with your mouth open with anybody but you! Everybody else does it _naturally,_ ” he said, in his most put-upon voice. A thought interrupted his little miniature tirade. “Oh, by the way, Winry's coming up.” Ed almost managed to hide his flinch at those words. “For the trial, I mean,” Al clarified.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, recovering almost instantly, and paying no heed whatsoever to Al's admonition about not talking with food in his mouth. “I guess she heard about all this bullshit, then.”

“Yeah. I think she'll be a good witness to have for your case. And besides... well, we want to see each other,” Al said, pinking at the cheeks.

Ed laughed. 

“I'm glad you two are getting along so well. See, I told you it would work out.” He paused, chewing thoughtfully. “By the way, Roy's coming for dinner at seven. He said he wanted either pasta or steak or something. It's our turn to cook.”

“I'm glad, too. And you mean it's _my_ turn to cook,” Al returned, amused. “You never help, and thank god for that. I wish you'd told me a bit earlier, though.” He glanced up to check the clock, which said half past four. “It's getting pretty late to make it to the butcher shop, though. It closes at five.”

“Well, we can do pasta then,” said Edward, ignoring Al's jibe at his cooking skills.

“But I want steak. So I'm cooking steak,” he declared. “The other day, I read about this new herb and olive oil rub that sounds amazing and I want to try it out. And you had better not stuff yourself so much on those god-awful biscuits that you can't eat my steak.”

“But I'll starve if I have to wait till seven to eat!” he said, in his most annoying play-whine. “And you know my stomach's a bottomless pit, so no worries about being too full. But I can run to the butcher's, if you want, so you can finish up here with – whatever you were doing. I'm not hopeless enough with food shit that I can't even manage to buy it.”

A sharp rap on the front door interrupted their conversation

“Oh, I'll get it,” said Al, as he was closer to the entryway, choosing to ignore Edward as he shoved another biscuit in his mouth. It was strange to be getting callers unannounced: they didn't usually have many visitors. A wash of nervousness hit him – was it another reporter? – but he checked out the little peep-hole in the walnut door, and saw someone much more familiar.

“Hello, General!” he said, as he swung the door open. Sometimes he felt like he should start calling the man by his given name, but it somehow just never happened. Maybe he could start referring to him by it when he wasn't present, and then gradually work his way up to using it in conversation with him. “You're here early.”

Roy gave him a smile, but Al could see immediately that it was tense, distracted.

“Yes, I am, a bit,” he said, stepping past Al inside. Technically, the general had had a key to their house for months, but Al appreciated the fact that he was polite enough to knock and request entrance rather than just barging in. “I was done with my work, and thought I would go ahead and come over.” His eyes scanned the living room in short bursts before settling on Edward, still chewing his biscuit on the kitchen counter.

“Hey, Roy,” he said. “I thought you had stuff to do with Major Hawkeye.”

Al shut the door and followed the other man into the living room, then kitchen.

“I have finished my business with her for the day. I'm glad to see you've left the lab. I had been hoping you had.” There was something very strange about the way he said that. “Edward, can I see you upstairs?”

Tension sprung between them, immediate and palpable. Al looked from one to the other: Roy, stiff and unwavering; Ed, suddenly hunched and defensive. He stared at the floor.

“I was actually about to go to the butcher shop to get steak so Al can cook.”

“I'm sure he can manage by himself for a bit. You can help when we're done.” Both of their voices were so neutral that Al knew there had to be something wrong.

Whatever it was, he probably shouldn't interfere. He knew he shouldn't intrude on lovers' quarrels. But still, something about this seemed... different. His instincts were on high alert.

“I'm fine by myself. I manage most nights,” he said with forced cheer, just so that he wouldn't get caught up in their mood. “You two go do your thing, and I'll go to the store.”

Ed hopped down off of the counter, with a look like this was the very last thing he wanted to do.

“Okay. If you're sure, Al,” he said, and walked around the long counter that was the only divider between the living room and kitchen to arrive at the stairs, which he took one at a time, and at a reasonable pace for a human being.

Roy gave the younger man a hard, appraising look, and started to follow him. Al watched them go, still wondering, considering.

It was probably nothing, he told himself, vehemently. If it was something important, they would tell him. Ed would tell him. Right?

*

Ed didn't turn around to face the other man until they were in his bedroom. Roy closed the door, which shrunk the room down to a quarter of its size: the small space trapped him, choked him, a wild thing in a hunter's snare. They stood as far apart as good courtesy would allow, frozen for a moment, before Roy broke the standstill by stepping forward to sit down on the edge of Edward's bed.

“Come on, sit down,” he said, patting the spot next to him in invitation. “It's okay – I promise I won't bite.”

Edward watched him warily, but sat down on the bed anyway, next to his pillow, as much distance between them as he could manage.

“Don't think I haven't noticed how you've been avoiding me. I've never known you to turn down make-up sex before, and you did it twice in a very short period. You've sounded or looked nervous for the past several days, like you might spook and run if I say the wrong thing. Do you want to tell me what that's about?” he asked, his voice calm.

He didn't sound hurt by the fact that Ed had been treating him that way, or angry about it. In fact, he sounded perfectly normal. This certainly was not a reassuring fact.

“I haven't been avoiding you,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “I've just been busy, trying to catch up on stuff at the lab.”

“I see,” said Roy, and Ed was not even for a second under the impression that the other man had believed him. Instead of responding further, the general reached into his coat and pulled out a folded packet of papers, then unfolded it. He glanced over it briefly: Edward couldn't put a name to the look on his face, but whatever it was, it sparked in him a dark foreboding. 

He handed it over the distance between them, and Edward took it in his hands, smoothed it out. He looked at Roy, questioning.

“What's this?” he asked, brow furrowing. Every instinct told him that something was very wrong. The papers stared at him, heavy in his hands, and he found that he very much didn't want to pull back the cover.

“Just read it.”

Tentatively, he opened it. A series of four pictures drew his eye first, four military ID photos set next to paragraphs of text. As he took them in, his eyes widened, and his vague unease exploded into full-blown nausea. He recognized the four faces in the photos: these were the men who had assaulted him. He read through the first several pages quickly, speeding through them with a growing sense of dread.

Then he turned to the last page. On this one, there seemed to be a script of some sort: he realized, in a shock as punishing as a stab to the gut, that it was a transcript of a conversation. His mouth went dry, his blood rushing through his head so fast it made him dizzy. He managed to make it to the end of the page as the world swam around him.

_Roy read this. He knows._

Silent, he put the paper to his side, let it sit on the bed, unwilling to look at it anymore. Keeping his eyes to the floor protected him from having to look over, having to see the expression on the other man's face. He didn't make a move, didn't say a word, didn't know what to say to that. It was Roy's move.

There was a long, pregnant silence between them: the general broke it.

“Major Hawkeye gave that to me,” he said, and Ed could feel the brand of the man's dark eyes on him. “The conversation was written down yesterday, sometime after two o'clock. Not long after the time when, according to your brother, you straggled in to your house with a strange injury, jumpy as a colt.” He paused, waiting for the younger man to say anything. Ed didn't: his mouth had frozen up, locked in place. 

“I suppose I can take it from your reaction,” Roy finally said, “that these men are not unfamiliar to you, and that the things they were talking about in their conversation are true.”

His own heartbeat almost rang louder in Ed's ears than his lover's voice. He stayed there, hunched, staring at the floor in sullen silence. Maybe if he didn't say anything, Roy would go away, he could burn those fucking papers, and they could all go on pretending that none of this had happened.

“Edward, are you alright?” the man asked, and thank god he didn't reach out to touch Ed at all, because the thought of a hand on him made his skin prickle and his tongue feel like a dry weight in his mouth. But at least he knew the answer to this question automatically.

“I'm fine. It's not a big deal,” he said, looking up to meet Roy's eyes and trying out a smile, doing his best to sound convincing. From the look on the older man's face, he guessed he was a failure at that, too. He barreled on anyway. “It was just a fight. I kicked their asses, we all went home. The rest of that shit is in their crazy fucking heads.”

Roy's eyes tightened, his brow furrowing as his lip curled into a frown. Edward knew that look – Roy was really worried, and why the fuck couldn't he keep the man out of this?

“Please, Edward, don't lie to me. We both know that your behavior hasn't been normal. You've taken down humans and monsters a hundred times more powerful than those men and not acted like this afterward. Give me some credit: I'm not a stupid man, and I know you better than that,” he said. _I don't want to talk about this, not ever, please just leave me alone._

“Okay, so maybe some weird-ass shit happened, but I'm _fine._ ”

“Ah, yes, sorry, my mistake. You're just avoiding any kind of touch or extended human interaction and lying to both Alphonse and myself for fun, I take it,” Roy said, and somehow that pointed response hurt, probably more than the man had meant for it to – probably because he was hurting, and Ed could see that he was hurting, and the fact that he was hurting because of Ed just made it all worse.

No, he wasn't doing it for _fun._ He was lying because he hadn't wanted anyone to _know._ His shame could be private, for his eyes only. He didn't want to talk about this, didn't want to be reminded of the wet slide of that thumb down his neck, of watching that man's blood wash out of his mouth and down a hotel drain. 

Then, most painfully of all, Roy said: 

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Ed set his shoulders square, scowling, even as he slumped down onto his seat. Obviously Roy wasn't going to be convinced that nothing had happened _(he knows, he can see it on you, he's seen strangers' hands between your legs –)_

“What would the point have been?” he shot back. “Obviously I don't even have to. Your spy network tells you every fucking thing I do before I get a chance to.”

“ _Ed..._ ” Roy said, sounding even worse than he had moments ago, and Edward cringed – god, why did he keep lashing out like this? “I was just worried about you – and apparently, I was right to be.”

The sickness swelled in his stomach. He couldn't fucking take care of himself, so Roy was worrying: he didn't mean to put more on the man's plate than he already had, didn't mean to distract him from what he needed to be doing right then – which was getting his career back on track, not tending to scared little boy _(sick little faggot)._

“Well, fucking _don't._ I can handle myself. Stop treating me like a kid you need to take care of, I don't _need_ that shit.” 

The general's shock at Edward's words was almost as strong as the pity had been – but then, the shock grew hard with another emotion, immediately visible on the man's face.

“A child?” asked Roy, his voice sharpening on the edge of his frustration. When Edward sneaked a glance up, he saw Roy sitting impossibly straight, eyes fixed on him. “No, Edward. I'm trying to treat you like an adult – an adult I care about, and who needs somebody right now, even if you won't admit it. But you're so defensive that you won't even stop lying to me for thirty goddamn seconds.” 

Fuck, goddammit, Ed was just the master at hurting people, especially when all he wanted to do was protect them. 

_All you wanted?_ a small voice asked, derisive. _You didn't want him to know for your own, selfish reasons, too._

“What the hell do you want me to say?” Edward said, all of the force going out of his voice, leaving him feeling small, and tired. 

“I don't know,” Roy said. “I just want you to let me be there for you. I just don't want you to pretend this didn't happen. I don't want to push this, but I also don't want you to go about your life with all of those mental injuries that you won't acknowledge or allow to heal.” A pause, then, quieter: “I really wish you had trusted me enough to tell me.”

The raw pain in those words cut Ed open – he hadn't wanted anyone to know because they would worry, yes, they would make a big deal out of it – but – _you keep hurting everybody, now you're a liability, shouldn't have told Alphonse anything at all –_

“But that's not –” he blurted, meeting Roy's gaze with wide eyes. “That's not it! Of course I trust you,” he said, straightening. Sometimes, the more emotional Roy got, the stonier and more unreadable his face became, and Ed _hated_ it.

“You trust me with your body. You trust me with your life. But you don't trust me with your hurt, with your vulnerability. You don't trust me to accept you no matter what. Even after all this time, Edward, you have so many walls. And that would be something that we could work on slowly, together, except that you are _hurting_ now, behind those walls, and I can't get in to help you.”

Those words rung so true that they stopped Edward there, still in the silence.

“But... I –” He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. “I'm really sorry.”

“Edward, please don't apologize to me,” Roy said, cracked, before Ed could even finish the word. “There's nothing to apologize for. You haven't done anything wrong. I shouldn't even be – I didn't mean to make this about me. I'm sorry. I just worry, because if the same thing happened again tomorrow, you wouldn't tell me about that either, would you?”

_You'd either be mad at me for going and putting myself in such a stupid situation or mad at them for what they did – or maybe you'd pity me and coddle me, and fuck that._

“Well, _no!_ ” he snapped back. “And I had perfectly good reasons for not telling you this time, too.”

“Oh?” asked Roy, and Ed's mouth continued without his permission.

“You had already gotten mad at me once that day for getting into a fight and I wasn't on board for a repeat performance,” he said, and that was at least part of it. “Besides, I've already fucked up your plan more than enough for one lifetime. No need to fuck it up more by getting you emotionally involved in something that you can't do anything about. You don't need any more distractions in your life.”

Roy laughed, suddenly, tiredly.

“Emotionally _involved?_ ” he asked, bending forward to rest his elbows on his knees, letting his hands fall to the middle, head bowed forward. “You say that as if I'm not already emotionally involved – and as if getting emotionally involved was a bad thing.”

A sudden heat bloomed in Edward's face. Shit – this was turning into something an awful lot like a talk about their feelings.

“Not what I meant. I meant, you don't need to be dealing with my mistakes instead of getting on with the shit you need to do. You have a lot of shit that needs doing.”

Roy made a soft noise, and was looking at him like – what was that look? He still didn't know: even when the man was allowing himself an expression or two Ed still had no idea how to read the man. 

“ _Your_ mistakes?”

Ed looked at him, blank. That wasn't the part of the sentence he was supposed to be focusing on.

“No, see, that wasn't the important part. The important part was, 'getting on with the shit you need to do.'”

“Do you think this was your fault?”

_(the papers say you like getting beaten up we can do that for you)_

Fuck, talk about loaded questions. Ed didn't really know how to respond, didn't know which answer would be the right answer. It depended entirely on how mad at him Roy was. Would he get points for owning up to his mistake? _(what were you expecting, acting like that, getting drunk like that)_ Or was the general trying to say that this wasn't Ed's fault? _(general mustang's whore)_

“It doesn't matter. It's over and done with. Can we be finished talking about this now?” He just wanted this goddamn conversation to be over. He stood up and started walking to the door, hoping Roy would let him go, _please just let me go._

“Finished? We haven't even scratched the surface,” Roy said. “Edward, wait.” He shot out a hand to grab Edward's wrist, to stop him from leaving, and – 

A familiar prickling sensation shot in waves across his skin, leaving sweat in its wake, cold and startling. And then the room was too small, the hand around his wrist too tight, he was suffocating, he had to get out, had to breathe – he jumped away, jerking his wrist out of the other man's hand, and backpedaled until he hit the desk behind him, his burning arm still held out in front of him, frozen in front of him, like it was guarding him. The rise and fall of his chest was a heavy noise in the silence that followed.

“Edward...” Roy said, and _shit_ Ed should have been able to control himself better because the stone of Roy's expression had shattered again and Ed could see pain through the cracks, could hear it in the man's voice, and goddammit, Ed was the worst human being ever to have the misfortune to walk this planet.

“I'm sorry. I'm really sorry,” he said. “But – can you not do that right now? Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.” It wouldn't be tomorrow. It wouldn't be the next day, either.

“I thought I told you not to apologize – and _this_ is about the last thing you would ever need to be sorry for. In fact, _I'm_ sorry. I knew that you were avoiding physical contact, I guess I just didn't know how much it would affect you,” he said, his eyes soft and his brow furrowed. “But this just further proves that, clearly, you _are_ distressed, and this _does_ matter,” he finished, his expression turning grim.

Ed didn't have anything else to say to that, just stood there, body coiled and tensed to the breaking point.

“Ed, I'm not trying to talk to you about these things because I enjoy fighting with you. I'm not doing it so I can hurt you with them later. I'm doing it to see if there's anything I can do to help, and to lay my own fears to rest. It has also become quite clear that you have gotten tangled up in your own thoughts again, like you're so good at doing,” he said with a short, bitter laugh. “As you've done with every bad thing that's ever happened to you, you seem to have decided that this was your fault. And as long as you think that, I think you're not going to be able to heal. If you talk to me about what's wrong, then I can help you better. That's all I'm asking. Please, tell me: why do you think this was your fault?”

 _But you – you wouldn't understand,_ Ed thought, his dizziness giving the whole room a surreal quality. Of course, he didn't have to say anything, if he didn't want to. He could leave again. Roy wouldn't reach out to stop him, not a second time – but would the older man take that as rejection? Would he look at Ed with such hurt on his face again? Ed didn't think he could stand that.

“Why do you always ask me such difficult questions, you bastard?” he asked, glaring out the window at the city beyond, dusky-pink in the light of the sunset. “When does it get to be my turn to be the interrogator?”

“When something important happens to me that I refuse to talk about, and when that thing is clearly leaving mental wounds that are going to scar over without proper care.” He paused, dark eyes roving across the younger man like he was collecting evidence: across the scrape on his cheek, the line of his shoulders, down the rest of his body, looking for answers where Ed's mouth gave none. “That is, however, not my particular habit,” he said, and that was a goddamn fucking lie because Ed still didn't know _shit_ about Ishbal, except that sometimes his lover's whimpers woke him in the middle of his night, and all Ed could do was wake him and pretend he couldn't see silver tear-tracks in the moonlight. “You're the one who has a tendency to leave your mental wounds unattended to,” Roy continued. “And your physical ones. You have as of yet given me no trustworthy indication that your encounter has left you physically uninjured.”

The gash between Edward's legs twinged, as if in answer. Could he lie about this? Roy was bound to see the wound someday, or at least see the scar, if he ever wanted to feel the slide of skin on skin again – and he _did,_ he did, _(you slut)_. Roy couldn't find out about it _then,_ when they were naked and he could see every bit of it: if that was the way it happened, then things would go badly for him. 

Besides, when he had gathered up his resolve, he was going to have to go to the hospital to get it sewn up, and Roy would find out about that because it was impossible to fucking hide anything from the man. Ed could try to sew it up himself, but the wound had gotten really pretty large and nasty-looking, and even thinking about sewing it together made his hands shake dangerously. The sluggish bleeding hadn't entirely stopped, and he had started to worry that if he didn't get it taken care of properly, it might permanently hurt the connecting tendons there. The puffy redness of it worried him, too: it had started to swell, and he was smart enough to know that infection of that kind could kill you.

But – how would Roy respond to it?

“Fuck, you just don't give up, do you?” He paused, feeling Roy's eyes on him. He hoped that the man would say something, relent a bit, save him from having to do this, but no such luck. “I guess I got a couple of injuries.”

“And have you had them properly attended to?”

“I sewed up one myself.” He had, with scalding needle and heavy sewing thread, and he had suppressed his urge to panic.

“And the others?” Roy asked, pointedly.

“Really just the one other, if you don't count the scrape on my cheek. Oh, and the concussion,” he added, though he had almost forgotten about it. He was pretty sure it was a concussion, anyway. He had had enough of them to know.

“A concussion?” Roy asked, prompting for more information.

“A crowbar,” Ed replied, glad to talk about anything except that last gash. “No big. I've had worse.”

“I'm sure. But you were less than specific about that last wound you mentioned. Has it been treated?”

Ed turned himself around, away from his lover's gaze, the tips of his ears burning. Roy had better fucking appreciate this.

“Goddammit, do you have any idea how hard this is for me to say?” he asked, scrubbing his palms up and down his face, as if he could wipe away the embarrassment, the exhaustion. “No, it hasn't. It's in kind of a – weird place. I don't want to go near it. I don't want anybody else to go near it either.” He took a deep breath, glad he couldn't see Roy's face. “It needs stitches though. I'm pretty sure. I dunno how deep it is. I haven't looked too closely.” God, that _gash_ – how could he have let that happen? Him, the Fullmetal Alchemist, hero of the people, defeater of all things sick and evil _(likes coming with a cock up his ass)_ let someone stick a hand up his pants, let them touch him _(forcibly, like he likes to be touched)._

The silence from Roy spoke volumes.

When Ed turned around, the general was on his feet, and there was a fire in the man's eyes.

“Edward, if by burning these men until they scream I can make you feel better, I will. If by roasting them where they stand I can help erase some of this hurt, I will. I swear it,” he said, his voice low thunder. 

“Fucking hell, _no,_ ” Ed shot back, half-surprised at his lover's reaction. “The only reason I haven't hunted them down myself is because I don't wanna get you in trouble again, so you're not allowed to get yourself in trouble over me. That's the last thing I want.”

 _And,_ a voice added, silent, _maybe you haven't hunted them down because you can still hear their voices in your head, because maybe some of the things they said are true. In the end those men aren't important. They were just the vehicle for the punishment you deserved._

“It's really not a big enough deal for you to go to jail on murder charges over it,” he said, to drown out the voices in his head.

The general seemed to deflate then, his Flame Alchemist aspect suddenly gone in a wash of exhaustion

“I hate to hear you say that it's not important. The only reason it wouldn't be important would be if you weren't important, and you _are._ But – dammit, Edward.” A hand came up to tug at Roy's collar, then to undo the first button of his white shirt, even as he sat back down on the bed. He sighed and closed his eyes, slumping forward once again to rest on the elbows propped on his knees. “I know that I can't do that. Major Hawkeye talked me down already.” A pause. “I was honestly ready to kill them.”

Edward nodded. Thank god for that woman. He didn't know what Roy would do without her. She did the same for Roy as Alphonse did for him, and Ed knew he couldn't live without his little brother.

“Good. Because if I'm not allowed to attack the man who's spreading filthy lies about you, you're not allowed to attack these men. It's only fair.”

The tired frown to Roy's lips twisted bitterly.

“To be fair, I think the situation is entirely different. Slander doesn't even hold a candle to attempted rape.”

The word hit Edward like a slap to the face, and he flinched back. He hadn't let himself put words to the whole thing, name it. Naming it made it too real, too concrete, made it not just something that he had made up but something that existed in the real world – 

Roy frowned.

“I'm sorry, did I get it wrong? Did they actually manage to...” The general drifted off, waiting for Ed to fill in the blanks.

If he was honest, naming it didn't make a bit of goddamn difference. It was real, the end, it happened _(you liked it)._

“I didn't come with a cock up my ass, if that's what you're asking,” Ed snapped. It was Roy's turn to flinch back that time: and fuck, that had been bitter, Roy didn't deserve it. “Sorry. I – sorry,” he said, words tumbling over themselves. “I don't know why I said that.”

From the bed, Roy watched him, carefully, scrutinizing. Ed could practically see the thoughts whirling around in his head.

“I think I do,” Roy finally said. “I think it has to do with the question you never answered: why do you think this was your fault?”

_(how many men did you seduce with your pretty face and your girly hair)_

(he had been rank with the smell of fresh beer and stale cigarettes)

_What, don't you like this sick shit? You've done it before._

Edward paused there, perched on the edge of a word, torn between his need to make up for what he had just said to Roy and his need to not talk about this _ever._

“I – fuck,” he said, slumping down off of his feet and onto his desk chair. “I dunno. I let it happen. I must've...” He let that thought trail off, but Roy caught it just the same.

“Must have wanted it,” Roy finished, quietly. Edward slouched down further in his chair. “Is that what you think? You didn't manage to knock them all out right away, so you've decided that means you're either weak, or you wanted it. And you know you're not weak, so... you must have wanted it.”

A panicked urge to run rose in him, then: apparently he couldn't fucking handle this conversation like an adult. With some effort, he kept his ass in the chair and his feet on the ground, but the panic turned to nausea in his throat. He didn't say anything, didn't know what to say to that.

“And you're ashamed of yourself for what you perceive to be your own sickness, and consequently ashamed of yourself for all of the activities we have been engaging in since our first encounter.” When Roy said that, he sounded so very tired, and guilt mixed with anger and hurt in Ed's churning thoughts. Didn't anybody understand? This was why he didn't tell people about shit like this. They always sounded so tired, so sad, and then _everybody_ was miserable, instead of just him. He figured there was no sense in spreading it around.

“Can't you just leave it alone?” Ed asked, in one last pathetic effort to head this off. “I'll be fine. You know I'll be fine.”

“I know that you will shrug this off like you've shrugged off everything else in your life. I also know that many of those things you shrugged off left wounds on you that took years to heal enough that they are no longer parts of your daily life. I don't want you to leave this incident unexamined and hurting for that long. Also,” he continued, “anything that makes you feel ashamed of me, or ashamed of having been with me, is very much my business.”

Ed's response was automatic and unplanned.

“What? I'm not ashamed of _you._ ”

“So you _are_ ashamed of yourself, then.”

“Yes! Wait, what? I mean, _no –_ ”

“If you're ashamed of yourself for doing what we have done together, then logic says that you should also be ashamed of me for doing it.”

That struck Ed back into silence. He stared out the window: the landscape had turned from dusky pink to a dark orange, shadows painted long across the city.

“It was something we did together, as much my decision as yours. Actually, rather more my decision than yours, if we want to be technical. If it's something shameful for you, then it's shameful for both of us.”

“That's stupid,” said Edward, having little else to say but needing to say something. 

“Yes, it is. But it's even stupider to be ashamed of just yourself, because then you're ignoring logic entirely.” His deep breath was a pause, a respite. “Edward, let me tell you something,” he said, once sufficiently fortified, “there is a world of difference between asking to engage in play with multiple sex partners, and a group of men trying to rape you in a back alley.” _God, oh god (the sticky wetness on his neck, the thumb on his nipple, it had gotten **hard** and they both had **felt** it)_ “And the defining factor is that you consented to one, and not to the other. One was undertaken with your pleasure in mind, and the other... as a punishment for liking men? Because they wanted you and were jealous that other men had been with you? I don't know. I don't know why people like them do what they do.” He paused and locked eyes with Ed. “But I know why I do what I do. I engage in play with you because I love being able to take the burdens of the world from you, to make you relax for once in your life. I love hearing you beg, because when I satisfy it I know I'm giving you something that no-one else can. I love being the benevolent ruler of your body, freely chosen by you to see to your needs.”

Ed's breathing shortened, and he tried to keep himself focused, because Roy was probably right. He needed to listen to this and really hear it if he ever wanted to please his lover again. And he did, _really_ he did. Someday, when his blood wasn't pounding through his throat like a river after a storm; when his body didn't feel tight, hovering at the edge of some breaking point.

“And you: you want to feel thrilled, you want to feel that peculiar pleasure that comes with pain. You want to leave your troubles on someone else's shoulders, like you never do in real life. You want to let someone else make your decisions for you. But perhaps even more than any of those things, you want to be wanted, to be desired. _That_ is why you loved what we did together, that day. Am I wrong?”

Ed sat, staring at the other man for a moment, then managed a choked:

“No.”

“I didn't think so. There's nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to be desired. There is nothing to be ashamed of in anything we do together. There is absolutely no reason for you to be ashamed of yourself.”

Ed stayed silent, slouched, and loosely crossed his arms across his chest.

“Now, Edward,” said Roy, gently. “Care to tell me what happened?”

_You want me to tell you every sick, voyeuristic detail? You want me to tell you how his hand was sticky from his own juice when he slid a hand up my neck? How my nipple got hard when he touched it, and how he leered at me? How he accused me of being a whore and treated me like one?_

_(pretty face – cocksucker – **spread his legs for me** )_

“I'm not gonna give you a fucking transcript, if that's what you're after. You know all the important parts. Four guys. A back alleyway. Some cuts. Nothing life-threatening.” _(your heart beating a crescendo in your chest, your fear, thick enough to be tangible – you thought that maybe you were going to die there)_ “I got away before they could get their dicks in me. Isn't that good enough for you?”

Roy sighed, his shoulders deflating.

“Ed, I wish you could understand how hard it is to see you in pain and not be able to do anything about it – you won't _let_ me do anything about it. I want to help. Your brother would want to help, too, if he knew. I haven't shown him the papers, by the way,” he said, gesturing to the packet, sitting, innocuous, on the rumpled blanket. “I had hoped that I could convince you to tell him yourself.”

What would he say? _“Hey, Al, great dinner, and by the way did you know some guys tried to fuck me? I recognize that this isn't so different from the rest of my life, but Roy seems to think this time is specially important.”_ Why would he tell his little brother about any of this? Al would blow it way out of proportion. Roy already was.

“Don't you _dare_ show him. This isn't anything Al needs to know.”

“Nobody would know about anything that ever happened in your life, if you had your way. And don't you think your little brother would be hurt to know that he was the only one left in the dark?”

 _That_ was a stab right where he didn't deserve it. He drew back, bristling.

“Fuck you, I'm _protecting_ Al,” he snarled, because he wanted to get angry at something, goddammit: he knew how to get angry. He knew how to handle that.

“It sounds to me like you're trying to protect yourself, not Al. You think you're protecting yourself from shame, you're protecting your image, but you clearly don't understand that _nobody_ else is judging you for this. You are the only one who thinks any less of you for it. Right now you're like an animal that gets beaten and then snaps at everyone and everything that gets close – but the only thing you're doing at this point is biting the people who are trying to help you.”

Roy really knew how to get a knife in through the cracks in Ed's armor to find the soft spots. He always had, for all the years they had known each other.

“No, that's not it. I just don't want Al to have to hear about this. It would hurt him. He shouldn't have to know.”

Al was still so innocent in some ways, still so utterly willing to see the best in people: it was one of the things that Ed loved so much about him. Every time he saw a bit of Al's faith in human nature get chipped away, it hurt Ed worse than any wound ever could.

Roy looked at him, long and hard, but didn't reply. After long moments, ten painful seconds, thirty, a minute, the silence wore Ed down.

“Fine. I'll tell him eventually. Happy?” he asked, feeling as tired as if he had just run a marathon rather than had a few words with his lover.

“I don't think that 'happy' is the right word, no,” said Roy. “I'm still upset – not upset at you, however, just to clarify – and I'm worried about you, but I'm glad you'll talk to him. You never did really tell me what happened.” The bedsprings creaked as Roy took to his feet. “But I suppose I can wait,” he said with a small smile. “I think I've gotten enough concessions out of you for one day. If I tried for any more, you might just disappear. We'll talk about it again when you're ready.”

Dammit, he hated when Roy was understanding and shit. It made these conversations way more confusing.

Ed took a few steps forward, muttering:

“Why're you being so nice all of a sudden? You're givin' me whiplash.”

Roy exhaled, shoulders falling.

“I am sorry. I was never intending not to be nice, Edward. But you like to turn every attempt to help you into a fight. I get – frustrated, sometimes, by how surly you act whenever I attempt to demonstrate that I care.”

Not for the first time, Edward found himself wishing that his lover wasn't so brilliant, so incisive, so good at dissecting Ed and labeling him for his convenience – and the worst part of it all was that he was always right when he said things that Ed didn't want to hear.

“'msorry too. I know I'm stupid and hard to deal with.”

“No, Edward. For the last time, don't apologize. Maybe if I say it enough times, it will sink in: you did nothing wrong.” He paused. “In fact, I'm the one who should apologize. I was the reason you were at the bar that night. I'm the reason you were in the newspaper in the first place. I'm the reason you were in danger, and everything that happened was _my fault,_ ” he said, voice cracking and shattering on those last two words, and Edward's head spun. Roy's fault? “So for what it's worth – though I realize that's not much – I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you that night, before all of this happened. I was stupid, and I was angry, and I was thoughtless, and I am _so sorry_ that my thoughtlessness hurt you so much. Can you forgive me?”

Ed frowned, surprised.

“What? How could any of this be your fault? Don't be stupid – there's nothing to forgive. You didn't do shit. It was all of _my_ bad decisions that got both of us in trouble.”

Roy's smile at that was small, and wan, a thin veneer painted over the cracks in his mask.

“Edward Elric, some of the things I admire most about you are your sense of responsibility and your willingness to own up to mistakes when you have made them, but these characteristics lead to a tendency to blame yourself for things, even when it is unnecessary and unhealthy. In fact, I might go so far as to say, _especially_ when it is unnecessary and unhealthy.”

Ed flushed, watching Roy regain his composure, slowly becoming again the man that Edward knew.

“I'm not sure whether I wanna thank you or argue with you.”

“Your usual default is arguing, but I think we may have had enough of that for one day, don't you?” Roy said. “Though you don't need to thank me for any of it, either.”

“Mm.” He shifted from one foot to another, once again examining the pattern on the floorboards. “Alright, well, lemme say this: thanks for putting up with me, even though I know I'm stupid and aggressive and hard to deal with.”

“Sometimes, you really are. And yet, I would much rather deal with your stupidity than anyone else's,” he said, smile wry. For a moment, he looked as if he were about to reach out to the younger man – but he thought better of it. He turned to sweep out the door, and Ed followed.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, question: would you guys want shorter chapters if it meant they could come out more often? If, say, I posted them every week, but with only half the content... It might mean that each chapter is less specifically satisfying, because there might not be any of the material you're really waiting for anxiously in any given chapter, but, it would mean you're getting it more often. Thoughts? I just realized that all of my chapters are turning into novellas and this is probably something I should avoid, or something? Would you guys be happy with a four to eight thousand word chapter? *waffles*
> 
> Anyway, I love hearing from each and every one of you, really and truly! Your kind words are, as always, the reason I do this.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meee... 24 years living, thirteen years in fandom, twelve years writing fanfic, seven writing yaoi, a year and a half writing this series (which started out as an experiment in whether or not I could write porn -- HA), three completed novel-length fanfics, one in-progress one, a smattering of one-shots, five hundred thousand words of fic, 260,000 words in this 'verse, too many mental breakdowns over those 500,000 words, and an immeasurable amount of joy and delight over them too.
> 
> And of course, how do I celebrate? I write and post a chapter of my story, naturally! Conveniently, I also happen to think it's one of my _best_ chapters, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly why.
> 
> It is also the longest single thing I have ever written, clocking in at 18,000 words... But, um, yay!
> 
> Also, thanks again to my boyfriend Avine_Sol and my best friend KelzKori, who read this with excitement and encouragement. They listen to me talk about it until I'm blue in the face and always respond and never act like they want me to stop. Sometimes I whine and moan that I'm ready to burn this thing and move on, and they slap me and tell me how silly I'm being.
> 
> Please enjoy!
> 
> Edit (12/2/2013): So, guys. Chapter 10 is coming as a challenge. It ends up that I'm having to completely, 100% rewrite, write for the first time, or totally throw out about 75% of the material in this chapter, and seriously edit the other 25%. Much to my embarrassment, and for the first time since the beginning of The Limits of Control, I'm actually going to have to miss a deadline I set for myself ^^; I don't know exactly when it will be done, but no later than Friday the Thirteenth is probably a good guess. I'm really sorry about this, but I promise the story will be better for the wait.
> 
> Edit (12/13/2013): Even more disappointing to me is the fact that I've missed my own deadline not once, but twice. One week. This Friday, come hell or high water, this chapter will be out. Helps that it's almost done being written now. I'm doing my best to stay energetic and enthusiastic and all of those other things! But fingers crossed, the chapter will be good enough to make up for the delay. Thanks so much for your patience...
> 
>  
> 
> I really appreciate your patience!

**Chapter 9**

*

Dinner at the Elrics' house was an awkward affair for all involved, as the tension that blanketed the room couldn't help but affect Al, too. Something had happened upstairs, and neither his brother nor the General were talking. He had heard raised voices – Edward's raised voice, mostly, then silence, then a return downstairs. 

Of course he had asked what had happened, but neither seemed willing to talk about it. The best response he had gotten to his question had consisted entirely of his brother giving him a halfhearted, “We'll talk about it later, okay?” to which he had agreed, because what else could he do? It hardly quelled his worry, though, and only stoked his curiosity. His brother lay on the couch, more or less in silence, staring at the ceiling with his feet up on the armrest as the general had helped Al cook. They had dinner ready by seven, and sat down at their kitchen table with only a murmur of occasional small-talk, and only between the general and himself.

He ladled mashed potatoes out onto his plate, and passed the bowl on to his brother, who actually thanked him: his lessons on table manners must have been finally having some effect. _Or,_ it occurred to him, the thought unexpectedly gloomy, _it was Roy who finally beat it into him._

His thoughts ate at him: the fact that he had no idea what they had talked about was going to drive him crazy. It had probably had something to do with the reason Ed had been acting so weird lately: whatever it had been, why hadn't brother talked to _him_ about it first? Over the time that Roy and Ed had been together, he had slowly gotten used to the reality of having to share his brother. Recently, though, Al felt a bit less like he was sharing Ed and a bit more like he was giving pieces away, which was stupid because Ed didn't have pieces and Al had never owned him to share him or give him away to begin with. And yet...

“So,” Alphonse started, just to break the awkward silence as the other two men at the table filled their plates, “how have things been going at the office?” he asked Roy, smiling politely. There was a brief, awkward silence.

“As well as can be expected,” the general replied, after a moment, impaling a corner off of his steak with a fork and slicing off a tiny bit with his knife. He examined it carefully, presumably to confirm that it was the proper color. “We're working hard to make plans, trying to get as many public figures as possible on my side, seeing if they'll speak out on my behalf.” Roy's expression was completely neutral, as if he were talking about life as usual, and not about a scandal that could potentially ruin him. “I need to counter all of the unflattering biographies of me that have been playing on the radio recently, and interviews with people who might have known me once, or ex-girlfriends and the like.”

Al wondered, not for the first time, just how many ex-girlfriends the general had. Or ex-boyfriends, for that matter. Was Brother jealous of them? He had no idea.

Al made a noise of agreement. To be fair, not all of the material on the radio had been vilifying, although most of it had been. Roy and the whole affair had started to be the butt of jokes in media all across the board, and there had been one particular political cartoon in the newspaper depicting Amestris as Roy's love slave that Al was glad neither Ed nor Roy had seen. 

“So what's your plan of attack, then? Or defense, really, I suppose,” Al said, drumming his fingers on the table, only half-focused on the conversation: the other half was off in the distance, wondering, considering other things. “Who are you going for?”

On his side of the table, Ed sat in an awkward silence, picking at his food more than eating it. The instinct to ask him what was wrong was hard to repress, but Al knew that it probably wouldn't help at all. Even in a one-on-one setting, Ed telling anyone about his problems was unlikely, and the idea of him talking about them in a group setting was laughably unlikely.

“Well, there's one radio personality in particular upon whom we're focusing right now. She has agreed to give me a sympathetic interview – or at least an honest one. The woman's name is Rebecca Daniels. She's an old girlfriend of Havoc's who he didn't manage to scare away entirely, and a very smart lady. She's become very popular both on and off the air – on the air for her smooth voice and clever reporting, and off of it for throwing a really excellent party. I was lucky enough to be invited to one or two of her soirees over the summer. You were at one as well, I believe, Edward,” Roy said. Ed looked up from his plate, frowning.

“I was what?” he said, as if he had only just noticed this conversation.

“You met miss Rebecca Daniels this summer. I believe she was actually quite charmed by you.”

Al's eyebrows shot up. He couldn't imagine his brother charming _anybody_ at a party, much less a minor celebrity. It wasn't just his table manners that were less than ideal, though that was part of it. It was also – well, everything else. Roy laughed at the younger Elric's expression of disbelief.

“Don't look so incredulous, Alphonse. It may have taken a while for him to get over his sullen irritation at having to be at those sorts of social gatherings, but after it finally occurred to him that parties consist largely of free food, his attitude improved immensely. These days, your brother is actually quite good at parties, you may be surprised to hear. He can actually manage to be polite, if the reward is good enough,” the general said, half a smirk slanting across the table towards his lover.

“Wow, I never would have guessed!” said Al, his laugh genuine, but not untroubled. “Good for you, brother. You may have a chance of turning into a grown-up after all.”

“Ah, shut the hell up,” said Edward, without force. He thought for a moment. “Rebecca Daniels.” He tapped his fork on his plate. “Which one was she again?”

“If I recall correctly, you met her at the midsummer party, and she had all of the party staff dressed up as faeries from 'A Midsummer Night's Eve.' She herself was Queen Titania. In fact, I think that 'charmed' may not be a strong enough word. 'Smitten' may be more on the mark,” he said, teasing. Ed scowled, though it did little to cover up his blush.

Faerie queens and delicious free food and his brother getting hit on by pretty girls? Apparently Al was missing all the interesting things by not going to these parties. 

“Oh, right, her,” he said, the red tinge to his cheeks hallway between embarrassment and indignation. “I remember her now. We talked about Xingese alkahestry an' stuff – I was surprised by how much she knew. She was cool.”

“I'm sure it didn't hurt that her breasts were right at your eye level,” Roy returned, the riposte delivered with a perfect smirk.

“ _Who're_ you callin' so short he can't see past a chick's –” Ed stopped himself there, to his credit. Did Ed even like breasts? Did he like girls at all? Al realized with a jab that he really didn't know. He had never asked, never really thought about it, but evidently the general had. There was so much he didn't know about his brother, he was beginning to realize.

“I tease,” Roy conceded, then placed another slice of steak delicately into his mouth. The tension between the two had started to ease at least slightly, which Al appreciated. “I know that you're perfectly capable of speaking to a woman without staring at her breasts. But they _were_ rather prominently on display. I must say that they were right at _my_ eye level,” Roy said, suggestively, then turned back to Al as Ed began to steam at the ears. “In any case,” he said, face schooled back into an expression of calm neutrality, “I intend to begin my campaign to win back the hearts and minds of the Amestrian people tomorrow evening on Miss Daniels's 'Fresh Air.' Step one will be to show how likeable, charming, and above all, how sympathetic I am.” There was a snort from Edward's side of the table that Roy ignored primly. “Step two will be to present the story as it actually happened, free from titillating headlines or shock tactics.”

“And what about Ed?” Al asked. His brother wasn't very good at playing this sort of game, but that didn't mean that he would enjoy being left on the sidelines, either. “What's he going to do?”

The general sent a look over to Edward. Ed shoved his mashed potatoes over to one side of his plate, then the other, and didn't look at either of his dinner companions.

“I think,” the older man began, considering, “that for the moment, it might be best if Edward kept himself out of the whole situation. What do you think, Ed?”

Ed gave this his silent consideration, and when done, said:

“Yeah. 'Kay.” The toneless neutrality with which he spoke made Al feel like his brother wasn't being sincere, but he didn't say anything. He knew when gears were turning in his brother's head, and he saw it then. If he was lucky, he would get to talk to Ed about it before he went and did anything stupid.

The rest of the meal passed quickly enough, with smatterings of conversation between bites of steak, though Al couldn't help throwing worried glances over at Edward and the food he was prodding around on his plate more often than he was consuming it. The last time Edward had stopped eating had been when this whole thing between him and the General started: Ed had not been acting healthy, and one of the signs of his distress had been rapid and severe weight loss. It had actually frightened the younger brother.

The time before that had been... 

_When Brigadier General Hughes died,_ Al thought, impaling the last piece of his steak with his fork and placing it into his mouth. 

When the dinner was finished, Roy helped to clean the dishes, then declined to stay any longer, claiming that there was some important work to be done back at his place. Al wasn't stupid: he could see the tension in the line of his brother's shoulders, in the way Roy's eyes had kept flicking back to his brother all evening, as if checking for any changes in the man's demeanor. Except for the moments when he briefly rose to Roy's baiting, there was no change: Ed remained as quiet and distant as ever. Something had happened between them, and Roy wanted to retreat, perhaps to regroup.

Roy shrugged on his coat and said goodbye to Alphonse, then stood in the doorway and looked at his lover, and Edward looked back.

They said their goodbyes miles apart, and didn't move to touch each other at all.

*

The news of the riots in Aerugo, near the border, was a welcome relief to Weimar: angry mobs had apparently taken to the streets in spontaneous violent retaliation against their own military, to which the troops had responded – as soldiers often do – with shock, then fear, then a mirror to the citizens' violence. A wash of satisfaction imbued with heady anticipation hit him with each new description as he held the telephone to his ear, listening to Major Sutton describe the results of their campaign in detail.

In the past day alone, there had been fifty-seven civilian casualties in the three towns he had targeted, and thirteen military. Seventy deaths was perhaps not that many in the grand scheme of things, and certainly not enough to seriously deplete the Aerugan fighting force, but that had never been his intention. Chaos, confusion, fear: these were his weapons, and he wielded them with expert grace. 

He smiled, though the man couldn't see it, and thanked Sutton. At that, he returned his telephone to its cradle, then put his cigar back to his mouth: he drew in a lungful of smoke, held it, then let it plume out of his mouth in a cloud. He didn't smoke often: cigars were exclusively an indulgence of celebration. Even he had been surprised at how quickly his team had stirred up the problems in the south, but then, it hadn't been difficult. 

The most delicious part was that the majority of what his agents had had to do was spread rumors about the Aerugan military's actual plans, plans to attack Amestris and take the whole southern quarter for themselves. The people in the border towns were, his agents had discovered, absolutely sick of military occupation, and didn't want their homes to be thrust into the middle of a war zone again. A few, carefully placed comments, a few leaked documents, and the discomfort of the populace began to turn to restlessness, then to those tiny, inconvenient revolts – and perhaps soon, if he played his cards right, to full-scale rebellion.

The Aerugans could be no threat to Amestris if they had to spend all of their energy quashing seditious bugs in their own lands. This was true of any country, including Weimar's own. This, he knew with a visceral certainty.

He couldn't sit by and stay quiet any longer, not while rats swarmed beneath his feet and around his city. They couldn't wait and kill them one by one, or the slow drain on their military would make them less powerful, less of a threat. No: those thrice-damned heretic Ishballans should be killed all at once, in one silent stroke of the axe that echoed through the history of his country. They should never be given the chance to duck back down into their holes and run away to lie and murder another day, to sow dissent within the fatherland. 

If Mustang hadn't interfered in his plans with with that smug condescension, that effortless charm; if he had just kept his pretty mouth shut, Weimar could already have taken down every red-eyed rat in Central. The knowledge burned in his chest, fueling and infuriating him in equal measure.

He often wondered what they ate: proper jobs to make money were unavailable to them, so they certainly couldn't buy it. Their food consisted mostly of stolen goods, he guessed – but feeding ten thousand in the sewers and the slums would take more than what simple theft could provide. Did they scrabble through trash heaps, like the animals they were? Did they come up to the surface and work for those who were evil or stupid enough to aid and abet them? Perhaps if he put poison out over the trash in the city – but he knew that was an impractical and dangerous plan, even if a pleasant daydream. No: he would have to work the Fuhrer over. Perhaps now that Aerugo was taken care of, if Batir could only arrange things with the stubborn ambassador woman, they could finally manage that last task.

His automail leg creaked as he got to his feet, pushing flat-handed against his desk to help him rise. The night looked in at him through the window of his home office, watching, and he wondered what stirred in it. He shivered, the cold going down to his port and lodging there, between skin and steel. The muscles and bone there ached faintly: bad weather was on the move. With any luck, the rain would wait until tomorrow.

He stepped out of his office into his house at just past seven that evening, searching through the rooms of his house to find Meredith in the sitting room, pencil working carefully over her sketchpad as she sat, curled up on the couch in front of a merrily blazing fire. That she didn't hear him walking up behind her was testament to her utter absorption – with his leg the way it was, he would hardly call himself stealthy. He watched her for a long moment, creating imagined figures out of pencil dust, before informing her of his presence.

“Meredith, my dear,” he began. She jumped, spinning around to see him as best as she could while sitting. “It's beautiful.” It was: on her paper, he saw a woman reclining on a sofa with one leg tucked under her, her long, shining hair wrapped around her body to maintain her modesty. His wife really was quite the talent: it was really quite a shame that she hardly had time for such pursuits anymore.

“Oh, thank you,” she replied, a light flush making itself known on her sharp cheekbones. “I'm sorry, you startled me. I didn't notice you.”

“Quite alright,” he said with a smile. He came around to the front of the couch but didn't sit down – if he did, then he would just have to stand up again, and that would be as painful for his leg as it had been in his office. “I'm glad to see you practicing.” He paused, and stroked a loose strand of her brown hair back behind her ear.

“It's not much, really,” she said, closing her book as if shy: she had always been a bit protective of her work, a tendency which Mikhael found a bit silly. Her drawings were loose and beautiful, giving every appearance of effortlessness. “I just had an urge to pick it up a bit ago, is all. Are you done with your work for the evening?” she asked, setting her sketchpad down on the coffee table.

“Yes,” he said, full of good cheer. “For the rest of the evening, I hope. I was wondering, now, if perhaps you would be interested in joining me out at the theatre?” They had done little out together since he had begun this whole campaign, and he felt bad to see his little bird cooped up indoors.

“Perhaps,” she said, and there was something odd in her voice. “But first, come, sit down,” she said, nodding at the space beside her on the couch.

Weimar did, something unsettling in his stomach. Her expression had gone from faintly embarrassed to entirely too serious.

“If you insist,” he said with a smile, trying not to let her see the pain that the motion of sitting induced in his hip – but he knew from the tightening of her eyes and the tilt of her head that she saw it anyway. She saw everything. She stayed silent for a moment, watching him. “Did you... want to talk about something, my love?”

She bit one side of her bottom lip, like she only did when she was nervous, and the emotion began to spread to him, a contagion. 

“Yes,” she began, slowly, carefully considering each word, “I did. I've been trying to decide how to bring it up to you.”

He had a feeling that he didn't like where this was going.

“Directly is usually best,” he said with a wan smile, hypocrite that he was.

“That is what I eventually decided,” she said. Her legs were folded together to the side, her hands on her lap, the curved stroke of her figure elegant despite the girlish position. “Mikhael, you know that I love you. I know you better than anyone living,” she said, and that was certainly true. “I have been with you, as your friend and then as your wife, through the whole of your political career, and have seen your rise through the ranks. I know that one of your main goals is and always has been to make the country safe by making it strong, and I respect that. But your insistence that the end justifies the means has finally gone beyond what I can quietly ignore.” She paused. Weimar made no noise to interrupt the silence: his breath hung suspended in his lungs. “I finally saw the Friday papers yesterday,” she murmured, her gaze falling down to focus on her knees. 

“I see.” This was the only response Weimar managed for at least thirty seconds. “And I take it that you do not approve.”

“ _No,_ of _course_ I don't,” she said, eyes flickering all around the room in her distress before finally focusing back on his face. “Mikhael, this is _vile._ Every time that you've started one of these campaigns before, it's just been stories, rumors: you've never had anything like _this_ published. I can't believe you'd go to such lengths just to get rid of General Mustang.”

Her disgust and disapproval cut him deeper than any knife ever could. _And she doesn't know the half of it,_ he thought, throat parched like desert sand.

“The people have a right to know who General Mustang is, and what he's doing,” he replied, the response feeling somehow worn out, thin. “This abomination that he engages in daily is a disgrace to the name of the military and to our country.”

“Is it?” she asked, with a faint laugh. The mirthless sound echoed between them for too long. “So what does that make you, love?”

He froze, sweat running cold down his neck.

“...I'm sorry?” he asked, once he had recovered enough to use words. His heart beat out a frantic terror in his chest. 

“If he's an 'abomination' and a 'disgrace,' then what are you?” she said, never raising her voice: her eyes locked with his, solid.

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

“Oh, Mikhael, don't insult me,” she said, her head tilting to the side and the corners of her eyes creasing further, as if in pain. “Do you really think that, after all these years, I don't know that you love men? Please give me more credit than that.”

Nausea as thick as tar rolled up to his throat, and he had to fight to keep himself from being sick.

“What? I – I'm not –” 

“There's no need to try to hide it from me,” she said, putting a hand out to brush against his automail knee. “We've been married for nearly eight years now, and we were friends before that: I know you, now. In all that time, you've never come happily to our marriage bed, and I have never seen you look twice at a woman – yes, even me,” she added, and surely she didn't mean it, surely this conversation wasn't going to go where he thought – 

“Do you think I'm blind?” she asked, like she was hurting. “I know you loved Jonah –” _Jonah jonah oh god jonah and a screaming death, not a pretty one or heroic, all blood loss and gangrene and lockjaw and if you had only **been** there when those desert rats shot him maybe you could have saved him._ The chill of adrenaline in Weimar's veins kept him in place. “– and that some part of you broke when you lost him. Don't count me for a fool.” _I never did._ “I'm never sure whether you believe all of those horrible things you say about people like you, but in the end, I really think you're bitter –” 

The harsh scream of the telephone cut off the last bit of that word, and she paused, startled. Slowly, with difficulty, Mikhael got to his feet, unsure if he felt more guilty or relieved by this sudden escape route.

“Mikhael, where are you going?” she asked, more a request than a question. The telephone cried again, harsh.

“I'm sorry, but I have to answer this, my love,” he said: he did love her, with her wide brown eyes and her skillful comfort and her gentle nature. “It could be important.”

“Important? More important than this conversation we've been putting off for ten years?”

Oh, he hurt to hear that – he extended an arm to brush fingertips across her cheek, but she flinched away, looking at him with accusation in her gaze. Another ring: he had to go before he lost the opportunity entirely.

“We have been doing no such thing,” he said, his voice coming out harsher than he had meant for it to. “There's nothing more to talk about,” he said, this time more reasonably. He turned for the door. The telephone cried again.

“Mikhael, wait,” she called out, from behind him. He paused for only a moment, then left without another word.

*

Grotesque reliefs of cold stone are bodies frozen in the twists of agonized screams, human arms extending from the morass – reaching, searching, grasping, stretching, and held there, forever. This is the Gate: Edward Elric has known it before and will see it again, has stood in front of it a thousand times as it swings open to reveal the Truth and Life and Everything – strings of black arms with greedy shadow-hands lick out from it to clasp him, to choke him, to strip him of the only things he has left to lose.

And at the same time, in another world, he is a small boy with blood streaming from where limbs used to be, staring at half-formed flesh and _screaming_ and _screaming_ because his mother's pulsing red heart beats arrythmic time in front of him and he sees it, nestled into her chest, between her ribs. Her mouth hangs open and glowing eyes fix on him, do not move, the smoke does little to hide it –

He is in a dark basement, alone, alone but for the _thing_ in front of him that should have been his mother, and Al, _Al, Alphonse_ is _gone,_ this was never supposed to – 

And he is before the gate, all his sins laid bare, all his life a cold tally of wins and losses and crimes: they are judging him, and he is found wanting. The black space inside the gate beckons, and the white of the world around blinds him, and the eyes within threaten their own delight.

The twisted mass of blood and entrails that is his mother-monster squelches up into a pile, dragging itself up on arms that are little more than bone and sinew, the flesh staying behind on the ground as it gets to its feet, pulling together, congealing into his mother's body, his mother's face, dark hair, a dark dress, a red snake eating its own tail (he has sinned as others have before him, his own deadly sin pride – or was it love? – and the snake will keep chewing itself to pieces and swallow and bleed until there is nothing left of it). 

He watched her die, then killed her again, then dug up her grave, and did it _again_ – and she is evanescing into air, dying in wisps of steam and smoke and things only half-real, untouchable.

Panting, drenched in his own sweat, Ed shot up in his bed, for a moment failing to recognize the solid room around him: but he recognized it in moments as his own, and soon, his breathing calmed, his heart slowed, and he remembered who he was and why he was there. The night curled around him, comforting, and no one could see the sheen of wet streaks on his face. He was alone.

Everything, for the first time, was in proportion, everything in its place.

The thought of a stranger's hand in a dark alleyway (and the smell of drink and cigarettes and his own fear) was _laughable_ in the face of those memories. At least, this time, his naïve stupidity and his sin hadn't killed anyone – but still, Roy was worried, Roy was hurting, all because of him. The only thing he could ever do was hurt the people he loved. 

He was sick of being a burden. _Goddammit._

No way in hell he was going to wait around for someone else to help him. Fuck if he was going to let that happen. Fuck if he was going to sit and watch while Roy fought and struggled and Al did his thing and everybody had a place and a plan except for _him._

The relentless course of his thoughts clicked the last piece into place, and he felt a wash of relief along with the idea, with the realization. He knew what he had to do.

*

Repressing his panic as the taxi pushed him closer and closer to the hospital was not an easy task, but he had done many harder things over the course of his life. If circumstances had been different, he would have walked there himself, but he knew it wouldn't be a good idea: the last thing he needed to do was stretch the wound any more than it had already been stretched or get his blood pumping any more than he had to. Needing somebody else to take him where he needed to go – even this small helplessness left him frustrated, angry. 

He arrived at the hospital in a foul mood. He shoved a wad of cash in his driver's face, then stalked into the emergency unit and snapped at the receptionist that he needed a doctor _right that minute,_ and of _course_ he knew it was two in the morning, he wouldn't fucking be there then if he didn't _need_ it, and maybe he looked fine to her but _just get me a fucking doctor, okay?_

Once summoned and arranged in the examination room, the doctor was considerably more sympathetic than the receptionist had been, although he had been ruder to her. The man's curly hair was ruffled on one side and flat on the other, as if he had been sleeping on it and hadn't managed to comb it before heading out to tend to Ed's wounds. Sitting there on the medical examination table in only a pair of briefs and a thin hospital gown, his legs held apart by the armature of the thing, in between pangs of the deep, visceral terror that he fought to ignore, he managed to feel guilty for pulling the man out of bed at such an hour.

“Mr. Elric, you really shouldn't have waited so long to come get this checked out,” the doctor reprimanded, gently. Cold metal prodded at the cut at the juncture of Edward's right thigh, and Edward hissed. He stared determinedly at the ceiling. 

“Yeah, well, I did,” Ed snapped, his breath and pulse coming heavy as he did his best to ignore the heat of the doctor's hands between his legs. “Nothin we can do about it at this point. Just fix me up and I'll be outta your hair.”

He almost felt bad for having sneaked out of his house: he knew that both Roy and Al would have wanted to come, to support him, if they had known. Maybe this was just one more area in which he was building walls to keep the people closest to him out, maybe it wasn't – but he could do this alone, it wasn't like he needed to have his hand held while he cried or some shit like that. Besides, he was already uncomfortable enough with _one_ man seeing what was going on down there: the briefs he wore hardly lessened that discomfort. He could imagine the feeling of more than one person's eyes focused there, between his legs, and even thinking about it sharpened his nausea. The whole thing was awful enough already: he didn't need to make it worse.

The doctor pressed a cloth to the wound, gently, and let it sit there, for a moment. When he pulled it away, he showed it to Edward, silently. The dry, dark red of old blood caked the gauze above the bright red of the new blood, bright red swirled with some kind of pale yellow – something. He swallowed hard. 

“The wound has begun to become infected, I'm afraid. I'm very glad you didn't wait any later to come in, or else you could easily have gone into shock and died of the infection. You were very lucky that your artery was barely nicked, though: you could easily have bled to death. That was an enormous stroke of luck, and it would be silly of you to die afterwards of something that was so easily preventable.” The man paused, pressed a clean cloth to it again, then pulled it away. “We're going to need to drain the wound and irrigate the area with hydrogen peroxide and boric acid before we can close it up. It's probably going to be quite painful.” 

Edward risked a glance down at the injury: it was deeper than he remembered, and more ragged. A harsh, swollen redness had crept up around the edges, and he thought – maybe – that some of the edges were a little bit... black. He didn't know much about medical stuff, but he knew that that couldn't be good. He really had gotten here just in time. The raw sight of it made him sick, or maybe it was the fact that there was a man sitting between his spread legs, his hands moving, probing, touching... 

He tried not to think about it. He wasn't going to be ruled by this.

“Painful? I dunno if you noticed, but I'm half automail,” he said, dryly. “I had that surgery at ten. You can't do nothin to me that's worse than that.”

The doctor nodded. He turned around to a cabinet and retrieved a plastic box, then turned back.

“Do you mind if I ask you how you got this injury? It's rather an odd one.”

That had been the question Ed had been waiting for, and had blessedly avoided until that moment.

“Yes, I fuckin mind,” Ed snapped, glaring at the doctor. The man just went on preparing some system of rubber tubes calmly, and didn't look up at Ed. “Is it important?”

“It could be. Especially if there are... other injuries, left untreated,” the man said, the space between his words as telling as a monologue. Ed flinched back, stopped from moving away only by the doctor's hand on his knee. He watched the other man with wild eyes.

 _Fuck,_ the man knew what had happened: of _course_ he did, what the fuck else could an injury like that be from? It wasn't from falling out a window, that was for fucking sure.

“It's none of your goddamn business.”

“As your doctor, I would have to say that it is my business. I don't want to spend all of this time and energy on you now, only for you to die of a different infection later, from some other wound. Then I'd just feel like I'd wasted my night,” the doctor said, lightly, as if he were talking about the weather, and chuckled to break the awkward quiet. At least the man had a sense of humor. There was no pity in his voice, for which Edward was silently grateful. “You can't come in to the hospital at two in the morning when I would have really liked to have been sleeping, and then expect for me to just let you waltz off and die. No, sir. It's not going to happen.”

“Yeah, well, I won't. I'm fine,” he said, as if the doctor knowing about how he had gotten this made no difference, as if he wasn't at all ashamed of himself. “Listen, as much as you don't want me to die, I wanna die even less. I've got this shit handled – ah, _goddammit,_ warn me next time,” Ed snapped, because the feeling of a scalpel cutting into the infected lump at the side of the gash had interrupted his train of thought. He watched in horrible fascination as the man removed the implement and brought up the same small pan he had used earlier to catch what came out.

The doctor paused, watching him: after a moment, he nodded.

“I see,” he said, then placed a tube right above the wound: he uncapped a vial of liquid and began to pour it into the tube through the attached funnel. As it poured, the solution began to trickle out of a number of small holes down the length of the rubber to hit and burn like acid on the red of the wound. It coursed through the gash, flooding it, exorcising it with fire, until it had done its duty and dripped into the pan below it, the dark brown of the borine solution mixing with blood and worse fluids to form a deeply sickening mix. Ed gritted his teeth against the pain, but allowed himself only a hiss to communicate it, because he had felt so much worse. “I suppose I'll have to take your word for it,” the doctor continued, watching Ed's face. “I realize that you don't want to talk about it with me. I don't blame you: I am just a strange doctor, after all,” he said, with an amused hum and an expression that lightened, then went serious again. “But you know, I hear tell that talking to people close to you about this sort of thing can be really helpful.”

Ed flinched, and not just because the doctor had poured a fresh flush of liquid into the tube.

“I'll keep that in mind when there's anything to talk about,” he said, after the liquid had finished its course and the pain had receded. He saw the doctor turn to the table beside him and pick up a needle, with thread: Ed squeezed his eyes shut and laid down, because why the hell would a fucking needle be more terrifying than a knife or a sword? It _wasn't,_ he told himself.

He had never been afraid of needles before he had lost his limbs. He hadn't really had any experience with them before that. Now, when he saw a syringe or a curved medical needle or suture thread, all he could think about was Granny Pinako with her hands covered in blood, trying desperately to close wounds too large for a ten-year-old mind to even comprehend, to stop the course of the red rivers that by all rights should have killed him. Years had dulled the memories but never cured them: he had given himself stitches before, and had mostly learned to suppress the panic of it. But this wasn't by his own hand – he wasn't sure if the fact that someone else was handling the needle now made the terror better or worse.

Apparently, the doctor noticed the sudden tremors of his body, and asked, with some surprise:

“Are you alright, Mr. Elric?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Edward shot back, opening his eyes and lifting his head just long enough to glare at the other man, then letting it fall back on the table. “Of course I am. Just fucking do it.”

The man did, and Edward held himself in place with all the force he possessed as the needle slid _into_ his skin, then _out_ of it, then _in,_ then _out..._

*

It was Alphonse who got the job of handling the police, after the Monday morning newspaper. On the front page, it declared: _FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST ATTACKS INVESTIGATING JOURNALIST!_ with as much import and excitement as if it were announcing the invasion of a country.

This development was hardly surprising, but still distressing. Although Al knew that the article didn't actually give the police a warrant to search their house, or a warrant for arrest or anything (it was notably lacking in proof or legal weight), but he still had a feeling that they might be poking around too much for comfort. Logic combined with gut instinct suggested that they would be at the lab shortly: the brothers' home address wasn't really registered anywhere, so probably the first thing the police would do would be to go to Ed's workplace. 

Consequently, the first thing that morning, he went to the lab, leaving Edward asleep in his bed. Before going, he hung a note from his brother's doorknob suggesting that the elder not follow him into the lab that day, though he neglected to indicate exactly why.

When the police arrived at the lab at barely past nine o'clock in the morning, a bit earlier than Alphonse had expected but not inconveniently so, they found the younger Elric brother in a lab coat, accompanied by a small clipboard, protective goggles, and a mostly feigned look of confusion. The head officer, a thin, hard lady who had probably seen the far side of fifty, folded her hands behind her back as she entered and looked around the large lab room. She wore a crisp uniform and an expression you could cut yourself on, and she did not look impressed.

“Edward Elric?” she started, grey eyes flicking from one scientist to another.

As if just that one woman's presence hadn't been threatening enough, two other men loomed behind her – these two men looked leathery and hard, one taller than their commanding officer and the other shorter. Neither evidenced any thoughts at the situation.

Most of the other scientists at least pretended to continue their tasks, but Evelyn, one of the post-docs they employed as lab assistants, stopped her work to give the officers an appraising look. Looking at her, it occurred to Al that perhaps he should have asked how she was doing; if he hadn't been so busy with everything else since this storm had started, he would have. She was six years older than Ed, but that hadn't prevented her from crushing on him thoroughly and bullheadedly, and she probably could have used a bit of comfort after all of these things came to light, or at least might appreciate some concern.

“Not me, officer,” Al said, putting down his clipboard. “No, sir. Ma'am,” he corrected himself, fumbling a bit over the etiquette: he couldn't remember if you were supposed to call female police officers “sir” like you were for military women who outranked you. Had he just offended her? He hoped not, and continued on anyway. “I'm Alphonse Elric. Why are you looking for my brother?”

The officer gave Al a searching look, as if she was deciding what to tell him.

“Your brother has been accused of assault – specifically, of assaulting a reporter named Guy Harriet. We had been hearing rumors since Friday, but after seeing the article in the newspaper this morning, we decided that we couldn't ignore it any longer. Do you know anything about this incident?”

Alphonse immediately went into innocent mode. How much could he say or not say while still never lying about it? He never lied to police officers, if he could help it.

“Oh, _no,_ ” he said, eyes stinging with the tears he brought to them. “You're really here about that horrible article? I can't _believe_ that man – he calls himself a journalist? That monster keeps telling such awful lies about my brother. I don't understand why he wants to hurt Ed so much. How does he live with himself?” he asked, letting his voice shake.

Evelyn crossed her arms, and Al wasn't sure if he hoped she'd join the conversation or hoped she wouldn't. The other lab techs stopped what they were doing, and though they didn't look over towards them as far as Al could see, it was quite clear that they were all listening intently.

“Are you saying that Harriet's accusations are false?”

“Well, I guess I don't know,” said Al, slowly. “I mean, I can't really be sure. But I know that while my brother is a fighter – he was the Fullmetal Alchemist, you know – he also would never hurt someone unless they attacked him first. I don't know why Mr. Harriet has it out for my brother. It doesn't make any sense. Brother's a good person,” he said, choked, letting a tear fall. This seemed to put Evelyn over the edge, and she glared at the trio of officers.

“Yeah,” she said, the word injected into the conversation forcefully, her eyebrows pulled down low over her eyes. “Edward is a good person and a _great_ man. Do you have any proof of these accusations? I wanna see a warrant, or else you guys have no right to take him into custody.”

“We don't want to take him into custody. All we want to do is ask him some questions. He's not under arrest,” the officer said, her voice clipped. “If he's innocent, then why is he hiding?”

“Probably because he wants to be away from all of the people who are treating him horribly after reading what Guy Harriet's been writing! My brother has been physically injured by people who think he's horrible because of what they read in those articles. You should be arresting Mr. Harriet for invasion of privacy, slander, and inciting hatred. It seems to me,” Al said, letting his eyes harden with his voice, “that you guys are just blaming the victim. Is that how the Amestrian police force works? How do you live with yourselves every day?”

The officer's eyes were impasses as she looked around the lab again, sweeping it for details as if expecting to see some kind of proof or something. Although she appeared unaffected, her larger lackey actually looked like Al's strike had hit home. _One out of three, at least._

“Come on, Chief LaForet,” said the big one, in a rough baritone. “Let's get outta here. I don't think we'll find Elric here, and maybe they're right anyway.”

“It's up to a court to decide that,” said the woman – LaForet, apparently – as she turned around to face her subordinate. “The police can't decide guilt or innocence.”

“But we _can_ decide which claims are worth having a guy arrested for, and which ones aren't. And I'm gonna say that I think this one is probably not worth it. I mean, we _know_ that Harriet has a grudge against Elric. That's a good reason to be suspicious of his accusation.”

“Yes, but as a result, we also know that Elric has a real motive for assaulting Harriet,” LaForet returned, her expression never changing.

“Well _yeah,_ ” Evelyn interrupted, scowling now. “Of _course_ he does. Are you even listening to yourself? Even if he _did_ do it – and I don't think he did! – then could you guys really blame him? With all the stuff that's been in the newspapers recently? It's bullshit,” she said, and Al looked over at her in surprise: apparently his brother's penchant for dirty language had rubbed off on her over the past few months. He was fairly certain that this was the first time he had ever heard her curse.

Laforet gave a sigh that was almost a huff, heaving her shoulders dramatically, and turned back to them.

“Alright, I'll consider what you have to say. Thank you both for your time. If we find anything else, we may come back to you for more information. In the meantime,” she said, waving a hand at the room, “carry on.”

As they left and shut the door, Al had to resist the urge to give Evelyn a high-five. Instead, he turned to her with a grin.

“Thanks for helping, Evelyn,” he said, picking up his clipboard again. “I couldn't have done it without you.”

She pulled her face out of the scowl and into an attempt at a smile with some difficulty.

“No need to thank me. I just want Ed clear of this whole thing as soon as possible. Sometimes, I guess, even he needs protecting, huh?”

Al laughed.

“In some very specific situations, I guess he does. But, uh, I wouldn't ever say that where he could hear you.”

“Of course not. What kind of idiot do you think I am?” she said, smiling in return.

*

No one had ever given Hawkeye permission to take her dog with her into headquarters, but she had never asked, and no-one had ever questioned it. He kept pace with her perfectly, tail held proudly in the air, less guardian than loyal companion. Right then, she needed someone who believed in her, unquestioningly; someone to whom the idea of her failing at anything was foreign to the point of incomprehensibility. To Black Hayate, she was infallible, perfect, the wholly deserving object of unwavering devotion.

A cold sweat broke over her like a tide as she approached the council chamber and came to a stop in front of its imposing doors. A thousand facts and plans lay organized in her mind, filed away perfectly in memory, and yet nervousness frayed her control. Three days had not been nearly long enough to learn everything she needed to know about the diplomatic situations or the workings of the council. She could only hope to hold her own, to keep the situation static until General Mustang could return and take charge. He had tried to share with her all of his strategies and methods, but she wondered what he had never thought to tell her because it was so obvious to him that he couldn't even see it. Even of the things that he had remembered to explain to her, would she prove able to implement them?

She turned to her dog and gave him a clipped, “Sit,” pointing to a spot right beside the council chamber door. Unhesitating, Black Hayate did as ordered. “Stay,” she added, and he cocked his head at her, as if to say, _Of **course** I was going to stay, what else did you expect?_

If only people were so easy.

Feet planted below her shoulders, back straight as a wire and tense as one, she grabbed the black-iron door handle and swung the door open.

To her surprise, when she opened the door, she found that the rest of the council was seated already around the large oval table that served as their forum – strange, because the meeting wasn't scheduled to start for an hour. She had purposefully set out to arrive here that long before the appointed time so she could have a chance to familiarize herself with the room, and to review her notes before being forced into this new situation.

“Gentlemen,” she said in greeting, never allowing anyone to see even an instant of distress on her face. “Sir,” she added to the Fuhrer, with a crisp salute. Not saluting everyone in the room grated at her, as all of the military officers there outranked her significantly, but General Mustang had insisted that she not do so. She was there as his representative, and while in that room she had all of his rights and privileges. It wouldn't do to present her as lesser than them: like wolves, they took the moment of meeting to establish a dominance hierarchy, and even a hint of hesitation or subservience could place her in the bottom ranks.

“Ah, Major Hawkeye,” said the Fuhrer, standing from his seat. “I'm glad you got the memo that we were beginning early. I was beginning to be afraid that you wouldn't make it.” The tone in which he said it was jovial, but she was not politically naïve enough to think that he meant it – there had been no memo about the time change that had been intended for her eyes. It was only through sheer luck and an almost pathological obsession with arriving early that she had managed to be there at all. “Please, have a seat,” Fuhrer Hakuro continued, gesturing to an empty spot at the table. There was no chair there.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I wouldn't have missed it. I find punctuality to be one of the most important traits an officer can display,” she replied, clipped. General Weimar's eyes hit like daggers on her: such things could do no damage to her. “Does anyone know where I might find a chair?” she asked, allowing a faint trace of pointed accusation into her voice as her gaze swept the room. She hid all other flickers of inconvenient emotion behind a well-practiced mask.

Apparently, that accusation had some effect, because one of the ministers scrambled to his feet, offering to procure one for her.

“No, no need,” Fuhrer Hakuro said, putting a hand up to stop the other man. “We'll have the butler bring her one.” He picked up a small silver bell from where it had been resting on the table to his left and rung it: immediately, said servant appeared from a doorway to the back left of the room. A few words of instruction, and he had swept off to collect her chair. Without waiting to be invited – she would receive no such courtesy here – Hawkeye walked over towards the small trolley at the side of the room to pick up a china teacup, then brought it back over to the table and set it at her empty place. She continued to stand, letting her coolness show that had been entirely unaffected by the neglect, and poured tea into her cup from the pot on the table.

Before the butler had even returned with her seat, one of the ministers – Alles Schumacher, the Minister of Finance, she recalled – opened up the meeting.

“Greetings, gentlemen,” he said, eyes sweeping across the opposite end of the table. “Ladies,” he added, with a nod in Riza's direction and a slight smile that did nothing to endear him to her. “Glad we could all be here. I motion that we begin the meeting with some words on our budget.”

The Fuhrer agreed to this without further ado. The words Schumacher proceeded to offer on that topic were painfully uninteresting, but Hawkeye received her chair sometime in the middle of his monologue, which made the whole thing more bearable. As General Mustang had instructed, she made little noise on the topic of budget reform: although she knew that the General's own preference would have been to increase funding for social programs such as poverty relief and education, he had also explained to her that part of the game was to not reveal too much of his future goals until he was already in power. He didn't want to give anyone any more evidence that he was a populist, at least until he had reached a point where no-one could do anything about it anymore.

Consequently, the budget amendments – increasing funding for military outposts in the border towns, decreasing funding for infrastructure in rural areas closer to the center of the country – passed without issue.

It was General Grumman who turned the topic to more crucial matters. Hawkeye's pulse sped up as she sipped her tea, trying to remember everything she had read, everything General Mustang had told her. Normally she had such a flawless memory: why was it deserting her now? 

“Now that that's over and done with,” the man said, eyes glinting through spectacles perched above an oversized mustache, “I've really been itching to hear about how our various and sundry diplomatic affairs are going.” His eyes turned to her, and he smiled. “I would have liked to suggest that Major Hawkeye start us off, and inform us of how things are going with the Cretan ambassador” – the racing of her heart reached fever pitch – “except that her commanding officer seems to have been abruptly taken off of the case,” he said, his smile very nearly disguising the acid behind it. She released a breath she hadn't even known she had been keeping. “So I must unfortunately assume that any progress he had made has been lost. So, General Batir?” he prompted, still pleasant.

“Um, yes,” the man began, his response flustered enough to be satisfying. “Well. Ambassador Rosenthal has proved to be entirely uncooperative. She is completely unwilling to compromise. Privately, I might add that she is bullheaded, haughty, and self-important.”

 _So she hasn't taken well to the reassignment,_ Hawkeye thought, taking another sip of tea. _Good. She struck me as an honorable woman._

Grumman raised an eyebrow.

“I didn't ask you for your personal opinion of her. I asked how the negotiations were going,” he said, pointedly.

Batir flushed again, perhaps in anger, perhaps in embarrassment. For that one moment, everything became clear to her: Riza understood, then, the delicate political game she had stumbled into. On this battlefield, a few poorly-chosen words could lose you the battle, or even more than that; words were both armor and weapon, and that weapon had to be at once invisible and deadly. If your intent was too obvious, you could lose respect, and honest openness about one's purpose would only allow others to work more effectively against you.

Her heart sank. This was a contest far beyond her skill.

“ _Consequently,_ ” Batir said, rebuilding his composure, “the negotiations are going quite poorly. She continues to present evidence that the mines belong to Creta, which I have no documentation of my own to challenge.”

Of course not. Riza had much of said documentation locked away in her own files, inaccessible to anyone but herself and her General. She knew that she needed to discredit Batir and paint General Mustang in a better light: but what to say?

“Perhaps if you had researched the topic as thoroughly as General Mustang, you wouldn't find yourself in this position,” she replied, setting her cup down.

Batir's eyes locked on her, flaring.

“Or perhaps if General Mustang had seen fit to give me the research he had collected, the negotiations would still be moving along smoothly,” he snapped back, and her stomach lurched: she knew immediately that she had misstepped. “Or maybe the esteemed General doesn't want the negotiations to move smoothly. Maybe he wants them to take as long as possible, so that it continues to distract the council from other matters – ones which are more important to him. Or perhaps he wants me to look a fool.”

Hawkeye gave him a cool stare that he could interpret any way he liked.

“Any man who can't be bothered to make himself familiar with a diplomatic situation before involving himself in it deserves to be thought a fool,” she said, her façade of calm a lie.

Weimar laughed from his end of the table, breaking the shocked silence that followed her remark, though the tension did not abate, and Batir looked at her with something close to hate.

“Well, it seems like we have a feisty one, here,” he said, and she couldn't tell if he was being patronizing or genuine. She remained wary. “She's not to be taken lightly, this one.”

Patronizing, she decided, with not a little bit of silent irritation.

“Let's not change the subject,” she replied, lacing her fingers together on the table in front of her. “We were discussing General Batir's lack of progress with the Ambassador.”

At the very least, General Grumman seemed amused by her comments. Looking around the room, she wondered if her frankness had won her enemies.

“It seems that this might not be the most fruitful avenue of discussion,” he said, still smiling, foxlike. Hawkeye knew that General Mustang counted Grumman among his allies, but she saw now what he meant when he commented that said alliance might not run terribly deep. For the moment, though, he seemed to be coming to her aid, and she had to take what little help she could find. “In fact, how about we have Major Hawkeye tell us about how negotiations were going before this sudden disruption.”

 _Sudden disruption:_ a convenient euphemism for a targeted disaster, one that left her trapped in this room and her commanding officer, a man who thrived in this environment, trapped outside, impotent. She couldn't help but wonder what he was doing now. Was he off being charming, making allies and implementing his plans? Was he sitting in his office with a thick political text and a notebook, worrying about her? Did he have faith in her ability to overcome this?

Her voice stayed clear and commanding: Mustang had prepared her for the directions that this meeting would likely take. For this part, at least, she had prepared a script.

“Prior to his removal from the case, General Mustang had successfully convinced Ambassador Rosenthal of the veracity of our claims to at least two of the mines in question, in part because the towns associated with them are culturally quite Amestrian, and would likely revolt if turned over to Creta. He was also in the process of discussing with the ambassador the possibility of her country renouncing its claims on the last three mines; in return, we would have to set lower prices for the silver and coal taken from the mines in question, when the buyer is the Cretan government or select businesses in her country. She also wants us to lower our tariffs, set an official trade agreement, and allow open borders between our countries, although the General was beginning to wear down those requirements.”

“The man's too soft,” Schumacher said, breaking his silence on the topic. “We had hoped that he would _negotiate,_ not capitulate to their every frivolous demand.”

Confusion made finding the words for her response difficult: in no way had General Mustang been giving in to the Ambassador. It took her a few moments too long to gather herself enough to respond to his nonsensical claim.

“He wasn't capitulating,” she said, and realized after the words left her mouth how weak and defensive they sounded. She tried again. “Negotiating often necessitates compromise.”

“Compromise?” Batir asked, followed by a chopped laugh. “Why should we need to compromise? Are the Cretans entirely unaware of the troops we have stationed in the border towns?” he asked, his question razor-sharp and directed entirely at Riza.

“I'm sure they are quite aware,” General Grumman said, once again coming to her rescue. “But bullying is not diplomacy, General Batir. Perhaps an understanding of such subtleties is the reason that General Mustang had such success with Ms. Rosenthal while you yourself have had none.”

Batir looked like he had been slapped in the face. The mood at the table was growing restless, irritated. Some of the council members watched her with distaste: Bertrand Kline, the Minister of Transportation, seemed to have gained no love for her. Others, Weimar included, seemed more annoyed at Batir's general ineptitude than at her.

“I think that's quite enough,” the Fuhrer interrupted. “I've heard what I need to, I think. Major Hawkeye, provide General Batir with anything and everything he should need regarding the investigation. I am disappointed to hear that I actually had to order you to do that,” he said: she didn't allow her dismay to show.

“Yes sir,” she said, painfully aware that everyone in the room was watching her. To her annoyance, she discovered that she had no idea whatsoever whether she had won the engagement or lost it.

The men in the room seemed to understand immediately that they had concluded that particular topic: there was some murmur of quiet conversation as the men shuffled their papers and discussed the recent debate amongst themselves. Hawkeye poured herself another cup of tea, glad not to be the center of attention anymore. 

Next, the Fuhrer had Weimar tell the room about the situation in Aerugo: he seemed to have been able to incite revolts in their border towns within a matter of a couple of weeks. The worst part was how the others in the room revered him for it, congratulated him for the bloodshed that had left nearly a hundred men and women dead, the destruction that _he_ had begun.

Or perhaps, the worst part was that gleam of pride in his eye, the challenge when he looked at her: _I dare you to do better,_ he seemed to say – or perhaps, _I dare you to try and stop me._

Through the whole course of the conversation, she said nothing, just sipped her tea and listened hard, to better prepare herself for the next time. The Minister of Commerce had a few words to say about keeping trade routes to Aerugo open, and the Minister of Civilian Administration, Julius Dresner, reported some unrest in the border towns: the presence of such violence not a few miles away had made them uncomfortable. No-one but Dresner seemed to care much about that, and Hawkeye didn't know what to say to help, so she remained silent. Eventually, Dresner gave up on it, and they moved on.

Shortly thereafter, it was General Weimar who brought up the “Ishballan Problem.”

“Their shantytowns are beginning to surround the city, you know,” the man said, his disgust undisguised. Hawkeye was not surprised by his blatant hatred: General Mustang had kept her informed on that particular topic even prior to her unexpected promotion to politician. “There's hardly a road you can take out of Central that doesn't pass through some little warren of them.”

“That's because the camps are overcrowded and underfed,” Dresner responded, matter-of-factly. “If we could allocate extra funding to making more camps and providing more food for the people living there, if their children weren't starving, then perhaps they would be happier to stay there, where they belong,” he said, the addition of the last three words turning his admirable suggestion sour in Riza's mouth. General Mustang so often came back from these meetings looking strained, even haggard, and she understood why.

Weimar twisted his face as he replied.

“We have no more money to waste on thieves and murderers,” he said, fixing a glare on Dresner, then shifting it to Gottfried Berlitz, the Minister of Justice, and holding it there. Berlitz seemed to quail under the look. The silence was pointed as a lance. “Except,” he added, “for the tiny amount we could spend driving them out.”

By “driving them out,” everyone knew that he meant “kill,” but he kept his mantle of civility by declining to say so out loud.

“Thieves and murderers?” Hawkeye interjected, tone quiet but unyielding. “According to the reports run by the Ministry of Justice, the rates of violent crime in and around Central have actually decreased over the past several years.” Her heart pounded in the hollow of her throat: why? This was the easy part. She had all of her arguments laid out before her, diagrammed, plotted. But so much rested on her, and on her ability to convince others. “I believe that General Mustang has made a similar point to you, before, but I have another to add: the number of men and women in the police force has also remained more or less constant since then. So, it's not an increase in police numbers that is keeping crime in check.”

From the leather portfolio folder on her lap, she pulled a number of documents with official Ministry of Justice statistics on them, accompanied by helpful charts. Looking at them, she felt a surge of gratitude for Falman's fastidiousness. Although he could do little for them in their current situation, what tasks he could he performed with gusto: the charts were so accurate and clean that they could have been professionally done. Two of the pages slid to the left of the table and two to the right: the Fuhrer and Weimar picked up one each, on the left; on the other, Berlitz and Dresner received their own and read them before passing them on to the rest of the table.

“This is interesting,” said Weimar, and the pleasantness of his tone did little to assure her of his sincerity. “Very interesting. Very official looking,” he said, like it was an insult. “However, this seems to contradict other statistics taken by the Ministry of Justice.” Dread suffused her as he pulled a sheaf of his own documents from a briefcase and handed them around the table.

Immediately, as she scanned it, the discrepancies became quite apparent: the numbers representing violent crime had been significantly inflated, and the police numbers been inflated in some degree, too. This chart also contained an estimate of how many Ishballans had immigrated into the city for three years. The graphs showed an undeniable correlation.

These figures were fabricated: Hawkeye knew it without having to be told. They were lies, created to prove a political point, but that didn't matter, because the documents had the Minister of Justice's personal seal at the bottom.

 _Your move, Major,_ Weimar's eyes said, glinting at her from across the table, glass shards set in a smiling face.

“I question these figures,” she said, meeting Weimar's challenge, gaze rock-steady. “The numbers I provided for you are in the official crime report published by the Ministry of Justice in just August of this year, approximately a month ago. They are available to the public through various police stations and public libraries.”

“Are they?” Weimar asked, feigning surprise, and she disliked the man more by the minute. “That's very strange to hear, because that's where I found _these_ figures. There must have been discrepancies in the versions printed. You're an honorable woman, Major Hawkeye: I'm certain that any problems that may have arisen are due to an honest mistake,” he said, but she knew that even the fact that he said those last words planted the seed of doubt in the minds of the men around her. Now that he had said that, she couldn't very well accuse him of lying, either: she would seem petty, vicious, and most of all, she would seem guilty of the very crime of which she was attempting to accuse him.

“I'm certain,” she said, instead. Then, she turned eyes to the Minister of Justice. “Mr. Berlitz, would you care to give us any insight?”

Gottfried Berlitz was not a strong man, she could see it in him. With every passing moment, she lost more respect for him.

When he replied, it was with the precise and steady inflections of a man forcing his words not to tremble.

“General Weimar collected these numbers from my personal copy of the Amestrian criminal report. I have endorsed them, as you can clearly see down at the bottom,” he said. The impassive declaration was like a stone; it struck what remained of her confidence, of her hope, and both sunk in her chest. She knew for a fact that her own figures were correct, or as correct as the Ministry of Justice was ever likely to be. At a guess, she would say that Weimar had finlly gotten to the man. She had thought that the Minister of Justice was undecided in his alliance: so much for that. 

She didn't know what to say in reply: didn't know whether to call him out on his lie or accept it quietly, but she had to say something. Instinct took over, and she could only hope it was correct.

“I disagree,” she said, taking a pause to think, “with the conclusions provided in this paper. The next time we meet, I will provide you with more research on the topic.”

“More research than has been done by the Justice Ministry itself?” Weimar said, with mild derision. “You must have quite an admirable team, to be able to collect statistics so well.”

“Thank you, sir. I'm quite glad to hear that you think my team is extraordinary,” she returned, and her spirits lifted a bit to see him frown, surprised at her remark. Perhaps she was learning how to play this game.

“I can't imagine that they're extraordinary enough to be able to verify statistics that aren't true,” he said, and she lost what little ground she had gained.

For the rest of the meeting, she kept herself to the outskirts of the discussion, interjecting only when it was crucial. Thanks to General Grumman, it was not entirely a loss: the man managed to convince the group that the foreign affairs issues had yet to be resolved enough that the Ishballan refugees could be the military government's primary focus. The council adjourned without anything having been decided in the long-term.

When she exited the council chambers, Black Hayate was still exactly where she had left him. He watched her with adoring, faithful eyes, thrilled to see her return, and she tried to shake off the horrible feeling that she had failed.

*

Edward Elric was waiting for Hawkeye when she returned to her desk at five-after-ten in the morning. They spoke – he passionately, gesticulating wildly, she quietly, considering. When she looked carefully, she could see the evidence of his distress in the creases at the corners of his eyes, the tension in his shoulders, but she would not interfere in his life any further by asking, or offering, or making any comment at all. She would allow him his privacy.

He argued, and she noted: after perhaps ten minutes, she nodded in agreement. He smiled at her, honestly grateful, and watched her as she made the telephone call.

*

General Mustang was more difficult to convince than Riza herself had been. Upon hearing her statement, his expression turned dark: he loomed over her desk, hands folded behind his back. She continued to fill out her name and the date on a requisition form, barely even glancing up at him. Perhaps he could intimidate many people – even most – but he had no effect on her whatsoever.

“What do you mean, Edward took my spot on the radio show?” he asked, his voice rumbling.

Riza didn't bother to answer his question, as she had done so already, but glanced over her paper one last time and said:

“He recorded it at about eleven.” It was past noon now, and the general had been scheduled to go in to the studio at two. Edward had planned his schedule that way purposefully: he had guessed that his lover wouldn't find out about the change until noon at the earliest, and by then, it would be too late to stop it. “It will play at six. I think it will be an interesting interview.” Beside her, Black Hayate lay on his belly: he cocked his head to give her a questioning look.

The general flipped around and started pacing the distance from the front of Riza's desk to the door of her office. Her paperwork found its way to the top of the neat stack in her outbox, and she picked up her notes to set them once again in front of her.

“Major, I generally trust your judgement above all else, but what the hell? We had a plan, and that plan was _not_ to put Edward on the radio, especially not instead of me! I don't want him to get into any more – _god,_ why did you let him?”

She wasn't sure whether he was so angry because he didn't trust the younger man to be politically adept – a not unreasonable fear: Riza had proved to be less than excellent at that task, herself – or if it was more because he didn't want Edward in the public eye any more than he had to be, after everything. The spotlight was cousin to the cross-hairs, after all, and the young alchemist didn't need to take any more hits than he already had.

“Edward came in to the office this morning, before you were even here, and made an excellent case for himself. We spoke to Ms. Daniels, and she seemed delighted to get what Edward was clear would be an exclusive interview. She has offered to speak with you tomorrow at the same time, instead: Edward was quite insistent on going first.”

Roy fisted his hands by his sides tightly enough that Riza could see the knuckles turn white.

“He made a good case for it, and you didn't see fit to ask me what _I_ thought?”

A bit of guilt raised its head at that, but she quelled it expertly.

“Edward also made it quite clear that he didn't want to ask you, because if you knew about it ahead of time, you wouldn't let him go on. Tell me, sir,” she said, putting her pen back in her desk drawer where it belonged, then folding her hands on her desk, “is your issue that you don't think he can handle it emotionally in his current state, or that you don't trust him to do the things he would need to do to advance your cause?”

The general put a hand up to his face and rubbed vigorously, as if to shake off his exhaustion. He thought for a moment, then looked over at her again.

“I really don't know. God, I guess partly I just don't understand why he would want to do this. Edward is sullen and bad-tempered when forced into situations that make him uncomfortable, and he has a bit of a hair-trigger,” he said, sounding tired. “I don't want anything to set him off, for a number of reasons.”

“To be fair, sir, you know the more volatile side of him quite well because you bring it out in him. I wouldn't worry that he won't handle the interview well: for one thing, he wasn't forced into this situation. It was his idea to go speak to Ms. Daniels in the first place.” The notes stared at her: she tapped a finger on them, as if by doing so she could help herself think. “And I don't think the interview will make him uncomfortable. You know Edward loves his celebrity. He likes it when people compliment him or otherwise fan his ego.” He certainly wasn't the only one; the pair was well matched in that way.

Roy stopped there, eyes going distant and thoughtful. After a moment, he replied:

“I suppose that's true, but this interview isn't about praising him for his exploits or his alchemical prowess. It's about sharing details of his personal life, which normally he avoids like it could kill him. And I do speak from personal experience in this.”

“Yes,” Riza replied, an automatic response to hide the pause where her thoughts went. She wondered, for a moment, if the general was jealous: Edward had so easily agreed to talk to this strange woman, but was so silent towards his own lover. “But it seemed to me, sir, that he thought that sharing about himself would be worth it, if he could help your cause by doing so. And he convinced me that he could.”

Ed had gone into significantly more detail in their brief meeting, but it wasn't her place to share any of it. And besides, the general would find out soon enough. _Even though my own mission was a failure, if all goes to plan, at least some good will come of this day._

That made Roy fall silent again. He put a hand in his pants pocket and seemed to fiddle with something inside of it.

“I see,” he finally said, sitting down in the armchair across the desk from her. He propped his elbows on the armrests, and folded his hands so that he could rest his forehead on them. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” he asked her, after a long moment. “I mean, Edward being who he is, and with everything that's happened.”

“Yes. I really do,” said Riza, hiding the swirl of her emotions behind a faint smile. “I think you should trust him.”

“I do,” Roy replied, with a tired laugh. “I keep getting repaid for my trust in very strange ways. Not necessarily bad, mind you,” he said. “Just strange.”

“Yes, sir. But that's Edward for you,” she said, and reached down to scratch a pleased Black Hayate between the ears.

*

The hotel lobby was considerably emptier than it had been the last time Roy had been there – but then again, it was a Monday afternoon, just prior to one o'clock, and not exactly a prime time for travelers. The desk attendant, a lovely young woman with black hair that curled softly down her back, smiled at him as he approached.

“Hello, sir,” she said, genuinely pleasant. “Can I help you with anything today?”

Roy smiled back at her, though the expression was distracted. On another day, perhaps he would have taken a few moments to flirt with her, to enjoy the skillful exchange of flattery and wit that characterized such first, chance meetings. But with everything that had been happening, even the thought of doing so felt like a betrayal.

“Thank you, miss,” he said, coming to a stop in front of the desk, businesslike. “Actually, yes: there is a favor you could do for me. Could you perhaps deliver this to the occupant of room 308?” he asked, pulling a folded note from his pocket and holding it between his index and middle fingers as he presented it to her. “The woman's name is Elena Rosenthal. I would appreciate it if you saw it directly into her hands.” It wouldn't be precisely incriminating if a military officer read the note first, but it would be inconvenient.

“Absolutely. I would be happy to do that for you,” she said, taking it from him. She really was beautiful. “And who shall I say sent it?”

The question sparked an urge in him, and he let himself give in to his sudden romantic notion.

“A dark-haired gentleman,” he said, smiling enigmatically: he swept away without another words, feeling mightily pleased with himself.

*

Edward showed up at the radio station's office five minutes before eleven, dressed in a black button-up and nice slacks and clearly out of his element. He fidgeted madly in the lobby chair, too on edge even to take his notebook out and sketch transmutation circles or anything. Distantly, he wondered if his lab experiments were going to suffer from all of this political and emotional bullcrap he was dealing with. He hoped not, but there was always that chance.

He left the top three buttons of his button-up shirt undone, in hopes that it would help in the interview, or something. It sure helped him get what he wanted when he talked to Roy.

He glanced at the clock: ten fifty-eight. Every minute passed like an hour in this bland beige room, full of couches with red pillows and lit by a faintly yellow light. He picked up a magazine from the coffee table in front of him, but saw a picture of General Weimar on the front, and put it down before he could get angry. He couldn't afford to be mad. He needed to be smart about this. He needed to be calm. He could do this.

Then, the door into the rest of the building swept open, revealing a pretty young woman with auburn hair cropped to her chin in a stylish bob. She smiled at him, red lips curling up sweetly, and extended a hand in welcome.

“Edward, how lovely to see you again,” she said, her voice as sweet as her smile and somehow silky. It was no wonder she was a radio star. Ed got to his feet and smiled back at her, hesitantly. “You do remember me, don't you, love?”

Oh god, was she flirting with him? He was so bad at dealing with that. The little nervous flutter that met his realization stole his response from him for a moment, but he righted himself. Even if he didn't know how to flirt, he could at least be nice to her.

“Of course. You were Queen Titania, right?” he said, and she gave a pleased hum. “You, um, threw a really good party.”

“If I recall, you didn't dance,” she said, motioning for him to follow her through the door. He did. “I was worried that you hadn't enjoyed yourself.” Every word she spoke was flirtatious, teasing, somehow full of... suggestion. “Oh, and thank you so much for coming today. I'm sure the interview will be fascinating.”

This woman reminded him very much of Roy when the man went into political-charmer mode. No wonder the two of them got along well. Ed guessed that, as with Roy, this charming affect was only a veneer over a mind that was much deeper and more calculating than she let on.

“I don't dance,” he replied, leaving out the part where he had no idea how to do so. All summer, he had studiously avoided Mustang's attempts to teach him. Waltzing at parties was one of those weird things that nobody actually seemed to like, but everybody seemed to do anyway. “But I did have a good time. The food was great,” he added, with emphasis.

“And the food is the most important part of a party the Fullmetal Alchemist?” she asked, with some amusement.

“Well, _yeah,_ ” he replied. “If the food's no good, then how can you expect anything else to be any good either?”

“I see,” she said, eyes laughing. “Well, I'm glad to know mine passed muster.” The conversation paused as she turned to their left, down a long hallway with large windows all down the right side. “But onto other topics. If I recall, you attended my party with General Mustang. Am I correct?”

Edward nodded, butterflies taking off in his stomach. He'd take a good fight any day over something like this, but that was totally out for the moment. Maybe he had never learned to say the right things in the right way like Roy had, but he was going to do his goddamned best anyway. 

“Yep,” he said, as she stopped and opened a door to what seemed to be the broadcasting area. A large panel full of dials and other mechanical things sat at one end of the room, in front of a glass window that looked into what seemed to be the recording room. Two chairs faced each other across a table, with a microphone set up on each space. “Thanks for having me today, by the way. I know it was a sudden change of plans.”

“No, thank _you_ for offering. I'm very much looking forward to our conversation .” A brief pause. “So, I have to ask, my curiosity is _killing_ me,” she asked, turning to him and fixing brown eyes on him. “How much of the story is true? Are you and General Mustang actually lovers?”

Ed fought his embarrassment, not at his relationship status, but at the fact that he had to talk about it, put words to it. But this was what he was here for.

“Yeah,” he said, even though he hated the word “lovers.” He hated all the words somebody could use to describe what he and Roy were to each other. None of them seemed to fit at all. “Or, I guess that's what you'd call it, anyway. We have a thing,” he said, sitting down at the nearby table. He wasn't going to go into the recording room just yet.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow.

“When you say 'a thing,' do you mean 'a passing fling,' 'friends with benefits,' 'officially in a relationship,' or 'I'm his love slave?'”

“A relationship,” Edward mumbled, tapping his fingers on the desk.

“Don't mumble when you're on the air,” Rebecca instructed, suddenly sharp and authoritative. “Listeners won't be able to hear you.” And then, she was back to being sweet again, smiling at him as she sat down across from him. “I'm not judging you. You two seemed... close, at the party. I couldn't help but wonder. Though I must say, I'm a bit... disappointed,” she added, raking her eyes down the length of Edward's chest, down the gap in his unbuttoned shirt. The flush that arose in Edward's cheeks at that was faint – he hoped – but from the way her smile turned somehow fond, Ed guessed that it hadn't been faint enough.

“Yeah, anybody could probably see it if they were looking. We weren't hiding it. We just weren't advertising it, either,” he said, choosing not to respond to her final statement.

“Hm,” she said, appraising him. She kept looking him up and down, but eventually her eyes settled back on his face. “Alright. Now, I'm going to give you a brief overview of the sort of questions I'm going to ask you. If you could give me some preliminary answers, I would appreciate it. Even though the interview won't be playing live, the team will only have a couple of hours to edit it after recording. It's going on the air at six. Best that we know more or less the trajectory the interview is going to take before we start, so we don't make my editors' job too difficult.”

They talked for perhaps half an hour. When she deemed them finished, Rebecca shut her notebook and stood, smiling in that razor-sharp way that only someone with their eye on the finish line could.

“Alright, that was good. Now, on to the real thing,” she said, happily. “This is going to be excellent, Edward. Should I call you Mr. Elric or Edward on air? Or maybe Ed?”

Mr. Elric? God, that would be weird.

“Uh, Ed or Edward is fine, whatever you want. God, don't call me Mr. Elric, though,” he said. He was used to being called “Ed” or “Elric” or “Fullmetal,” or even “kid,” which he hadn't yet managed to shake off even though he was eighteen, dammit. He was tired of people treating him like he was a kid, but “Mr. Elric” sounded _old,_ and he he wasn't ready to be old yet, either.

“Edward it is, then,” she said with a smile, walking to the recording room and opening the door. He stood to follow her in, but she put a hand out. “But wait just a moment, I need to record the introduction. Then I'll invite you in, and we'll get started on the actual interview.”

“Oh, kay,” Edward said, and sat back down at his table. Almost as soon as he did, the hallway door opened, and two men walked through.

“Hello,” said one of them, a short, stocky man of probably forty with a well-groomed mustache; then, a spindly stork of a boy followed, ducking his head so as not to hit it on the doorway. He gave Edward a wave. They introduced themselves as the technical guys, then sat down in front of the complicated panels, put on headphones, and started their work.

“Alright, we're ready, Rebecca,” they said. She nodded back. “We're on in three... two... one...”

Immediately, she was serious, focused, a totally different person from the one she had been only seconds previously. Edward had to strain to hear her through the glass, but if he tried hard enough, he could just barely manage to make out what she was saying.

“He's been called a world-class prodigy, the Alchemist of the People, and the Fullmetal Alchemist. His exploits are famous across the country, and he has been involved in some of the most important events of our day. He's saved thousands of lives with his quick thinking and alchemical prowess, and many have called him a hero, despite his acerbic tongue and fabled temper.

“At the age of nine, his mother passed away of a sickness, and since his father had abandoned them years before, he was left alone in the world with the exception of his younger brother Alphonse. A farm accident only a year afterward led to the loss of both Edward's right arm and his left leg. At the age of ten, he underwent the automail installation surgery, and despite the fact that for even most adults, recovery from the installation takes around three years, within a year he showed up in Central City and demanded to be allowed to take the State Alchemist's exam. Because of his extraordinary skill, he was allowed to do so, and passed the test that many others spend years or decades studying for at the tender age of twelve.”

Oh, this was going to be a good interview. Edward grinned from ear to ear. He wasn't used to getting so many compliments in such a short period. He could listen to those compliments all day long.

“But now, he's a young man of eighteen, with long, blonde hair that he prefers to keep back in a braid or a ponytail, and a cocky look to him. The young women of Central City have been taking notice of his transformation into a heartthrob – and it seems they haven't been alone in this. The scandal he has become embroiled in has been front-page news ever since it broke less than a week ago, and the city has been clamoring to hear more.

“And now, you'll hear the story straight from the lips of the man himself. We have on the program here tonight the former Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric himself. Thank you for being with us today,” she said, then gave the technical guys a wave. They flipped a switch, and she motioned towards Ed.

“Your turn,” she said. “Come on in!”

The tall sound tech opened the door for him, and he entered.

“I like you,” he said, grinning. “I like it when you say awesome things about me.”

She laughed.

“I like you too. You are quite a remarkable young man.”

Ed preened.

“Thanks,” he said, sitting down in the chair she motioned towards. “Okay, so how's this gonna start?”

“I'm going to wave at the technicians, and then, you say, 'Thank you for having me here,' or something along those lines. The interview will start up again exactly where I left off. Are we good?”

“We're good,” Edward replied, settling himself into his chair and preparing himself. He had seen Mustang charm people a million times over, and he was a fast learner. Besides, for his whole life he had usually been able to talk people into doing what he wanted when he needed to. He could do this. All he had to do was act like Roy would.

Rebecca waved at the sound guys, then turned and nodded to Edward.

“Thanks for having me,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. “Happy to be here.”

“Now, Edward,” she started, leafing quietly through her notebook, “Everybody listening probably knows that General Mustang has been accused of having indecent relations with you, starting at a very young age. Now, let's get this out of the way: is there any truth to these accusations?”

“None. I'd say our 'relations' are better than decent,” Ed replied, pleasantly. That stunned a laugh out of the woman, and it blossomed into a smile. She waved to the sound guys to pause the recording.

“Edward Elric, _that_ was indecent. Try to remember that you're on the radio. That means other people can hear you.”

“'Course they can. I thought it was funny,” Edward returned, with the same amusement as before. “It's not like they don't already know as much about my sex life as I do, anyway. I might as well make a joke out of it.”

“Yes, but – alright, fair enough,” she said with another tinkling laugh. “Alright, we'll leave it in.” She paused, thinking. “Actually, that kind of candid talk about your sex life may shock some listeners, but it may also increase interest.” Hell, she thought _that_ was candid? She should hear him when he wasn't censoring himself. “The public seems to be quite titillated by the news of you in the papers, so maybe we can give them more of the same. Try to stay tasteful though, if you can,” she added, with the corner of her mouth turned up and her eyebrow quirked to match. “Okay, boys,” she said, nodding at the sound guys, “start her back up again.” She turned back to Ed once they gave her a thumbs-up.

“And what kinds of relations would those be?” she asked, continuing immediately from where they had left off.

“Well, Roy and I are in a relationship, with all the bells and whistles that implies.”

He hoped to never describe sex as “bells” or “whistles” again. Being tasteful was hard. It was funny how everybody wanted him to talk around it, use imprecise language and euphemisms, when everybody already knew he actually meant “We're fucking.”

“And when did that start?”

“Coupla months ago. I dunno, six months? Sometime in – uh, February, or somethin'. Maybe March.” The pause was where he had censored his language. Curse words were his thinking words, the ones he used to cover up thinking-breaks in sentences. Not getting to use them left him a little off-balance.

“So what about the claims that he was molesting you at a much younger age than that?”

Edward made a face. That was the worst part of the whole thing.

“Listen, I woulda punched him in the face if he had tried anything for the first four or something years we knew each other – and I was hardly a helpless little kid during that time, whatever the newspapers may have you thinking. At fifteen I challenged him to a fight for my state alchemy assessment, both of us more or less giving it our all, and we tied. At twelve, only a couple weeks after getting my certification, I tracked down and beat a serial killer.” That was a simplified reading of events, but it was good enough for public consumption. “I had no respect to speak of for his authority, and I've never been the kind of guy to get pushed into things. And more importantly than any of that shit, Roy _was not interested._ I mean, I was a kid, for god's sake.”

He noticed his curse word just a second too late, and hoped they had some way to tape over it if it bothered them.

“Some would say you're still a kid now,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Well, they're wrong. I've been legally an adult for two years, and I was effectively an adult the minute the military inducted me into their ranks. They were happy enough to call me an adult when I was their lapdog. They don't get to take that back now that I'm off their leash and inconvenient. And, since I _am_ legally an adult and able to make my own decisions, it really doesn't even matter what those people think about it,” he said, spending his extra willpower to keep his words calm and pleasant.

She rested her elbows on the table, crossing her forearms there and leaning in towards the small screen in front of her mic.

“So you're saying unequivocally that the adult nature of your relationship didn't begin until recently.”

Ed nodded, then remembered that the microphone couldn't record nods.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was eighteen when we got together – again, two years past the age of consent.”

“What about the questions of fraternization?”

“I also quit the military at sixteen. The newspapers all seem to forget that detail: they're all talking as if Roy's been caught with one of his subordinates, and that's just not true.”

“But you understand how some people might be uncomfortable with the age difference between you.”

And all of those people could go fuck themselves. 

“Hey, if I were a girl, they wouldn't care. They'd probably be congratulating him. We all know that the real scandal isn't the age difference – it's the fact that Roy's with a guy. Besides, it's really none of their business. They have no idea what our relationship is like and have no right to judge us.”

“That brings up a number of interesting questions, actually. First, and I'm sure that all of your fans throughout the country are going to want to know this: are you interested only in men?”

This was a question that had occurred to Edward a number of times since he and Roy had started fucking, but which he had eventually brushed off as unimportant. He enjoyed sex with Roy, and had enjoyed his time with the strangers at the club, but had no data with regards to sex with men or women in Roy's absence. Maybe he just liked men; maybe the state of submission would get him aroused no matter which gender was dominating. Or, maybe, it was just Roy that he was attracted to, and he could get off on anything if Roy was there. He didn't know, had no plans to collect any of that data, either: he wouldn't sleep around just to satisfy other people's curiosity.

“I have no idea. All I know is that I'm interested in Roy, and that's plenty.”

“I see.” She paused, scribbling down a note and then flipping to an earlier page in her notebook. “Well, I suspect that quite a number of young ladies will be disappointed to hear that your tastes are so exclusive.”

Ed laughed, trying to sound amused rather than as disbelieving as he felt. It wasn't that he actually thought she was lying – his experiences that summer had proved her quite right, though he expected that most of those women were interested more in his title and fame than they were in him. Yeah, she was probably right, but that whole section of his life still felt more than a little bit surreal.

“I'm flattered by their interest, but don't return it. I'm happy where I am.”

“I see. You said a moment ago that none of your critics understood what your relationship was actually like. So you feel that you have been misrepresented in the newspapers so far?”

“Yeah, and I'm pretty mad about it, I'm not gonna lie.”

“Well, in just a moment I'm going to give you a chance to represent yourself as you feel you should have been represented. But before that, I have a few more burning questions: those photographs in the newspapers. Are they real?”

He shoved down every feeling that that question brought out in him, and managed to reply, quite calmly:

“Yes, they are.”

“All of them?”

“All of the ones I've seen. The ones that were in the Central Times on Friday were actually taken through Roy's windows. Apparently there was a gap of a few inches between his curtains, and some reporter was skulking around, looking to make a few bucks by taking photos that might ruin somebody else's career. That was meant to be a private moment. I hope the pervert enjoyed the show,” Edward said, not bothering to hide his bitterness.

She looked at him with pity, then. He swallowed down his instinct to react to that with anger: he reminded himself that garnering such sympathy was his purpose here.

“So what about the accusations of General Mustang being a sadist who tortures you sexually?”

_(you like getting beaten up)_

He flushed to the roots of his hair. He really, _really_ did not want to be talking about this on a recording that was going to be heard by thousands of people at the very least. He really didn't want to be talking about this at all.

(he could still feel that breath on his cheek, wet and hot and suffocating)

_(cocksucker)_

_(asking for it)_

“Well, it's nobody's business but ours what Roy and I do in bed,” Ed replied, shaking himself from his thoughts. “But since it's already been out in the papers, I'll go ahead and say it. Yeah, that's something that Roy and I do, though I don't think you can call it 'torture' when you both enjoy it. And honestly, I think that a lot more people do that sort of stuff in bed than want to admit to it.”

“Perhaps. But you can see how some people would be disturbed by that,” she said, sounding more fascinated than disturbed. “Doesn't all of that sort of thing involve him dominating you? Ordering you around? Isn't that a bit abusive?”

_(general mustang's whore)_

The room felt very small, too small, too hot, but he opened his mouth to speak anyway.

“It's not abuse. We only do that stuff in bed, and I really wanna emphasize that. Out of bed he can be almost nauseatingly sweet,” Edward said with a roll of his eyes, though his voice came out fond. “And we're completely equals, day to day. I'm not a submissive person: I'm actually really stubborn, and can be a real pain,” he said with a short laugh. “But in any case, I'm with him of my own free will, and I enjoy everything we do together. It's really hot. Whether other people think I should find it hot or not doesn't particularly matter to me.” His words he kept nonchalant, as if they were uncomplicated and wholly true.

She pursed her lips and examined him, eyes flicking around his face from feature to feature. He leaned back in his chair, leaving only his back two legs on the floor. She gave him a stern look, and he let it fall back into place again with a loud _clack._

“How does it make you feel when people accuse you or Roy of any kind of sexual misconduct?”

“Angry. Frustrated. Those reporters have no idea the sort of shi – the sort of stuff they've unleashed. There's been a lot of backlash that I didn't expect.”

His blood pulsed erratically, ignorant of any regular beat. Fingers twitched on his lap, ungloved hands fidgeting where Rebecca couldn't see them.

“What kind of backlash?” she asked, voice still full of that unwanted goddamn pity. But he had to do this: he needed their pity, for the first time in his life – for Roy's sake. Pity was the twin of sympathy, and sympathy often engendered support: he could swallow his pride briefly if it meant he could drum up support for Roy's cause. If he could only let himself play the victim for these five minutes, if he could just open his lips and speak through the desert of his mouth, he could help.

The skin of his forehead prickled, and he knew beads of sweat were forming there. He couldn't look at her, look at her pretty face, her soft expression: he kept his focus instead on the back corner of the room. When he began to speak, it was slow, measured.

“I've been attacked because of what was written in that newspaper. They woulda done worse to me than they did if I hadn't hit them back, and harder. A bunch of soldiers have reacted bad to the idea that some military men might like bein' with other men; it's like they were afraid that I'm contagious, that they could catch it from me, or something. People like Roy and me're less than human to them.”

“I'm very sorry to hear that.”

“It's fine, Roy and I are handling it okay.”

“That's good to hear.” A pause. “You know, some call a man having a relationship with a man a sin.”

_Well, if they try to tell me where I can shove my dick I'll tell them where they can shove their god, and we'll be even._

“And they're gonna keep thinking that no matter what I say, so I'm not even gonna bother defending myself against it. Roy's and my relationship is good for us, so everybody who has a problem with it can mind their own business.” _Can fuck off._ God, this self-censoring stuff took a lot out of him.

Her painted lips curled up at that: this was the part she had been looking forward to. Ed wasn't sure if the adrenaline he felt was anticipation or terror: but weren't they the same thing, really, anyway?

“So,” she started, lacing her fingers together on the table, on top of her notebook, her painted nails red splashes against the white. “That brings us back to the question from earlier. What is your relationship with the General like?”

“Well,” Ed started, slowly, to delay the inevitable, “I just wanna say one more time that he never abused me, and I wasn't sleeping around to get my rank. None of this started until after I was out of the military. And besides,” he said, his throat clenching, but keeping his eyes on her, plastering a smile on his face. Without pause, he continued, the words forced from unwilling lips:

“Besides, I love the stupid bastard. He's smug and infuriating and self-righteous, but he's also selfless and kind and principled and the best man I've ever met. He's the only man in government who has both a working moral compass _and_ a spine. He's a hopeless idealist, and the only thing he wants to do with his life is help people. For all the time we've known each other, he's always been there for me, even when I didn't appreciate it, and we've been through a lot together in that time. Other than my little brother, he's the most important person in the world to me.” His words strengthened as his confidence grew. The first hard part was over. A feeling akin to relief spread through him, mirrored in turn by dread.

Somewhere, perhaps in his armchair by a fire, Roy would be listening to every word he said, and that was okay, he told himself. He wanted his lover to hear, wanted everybody else in the world to hear: for this, of all things, he had no shame.

“Roy Mustang is the best thing that ever happened to this country. He's funny and smart and ridiculously considerate. We fight all the time, but for some reason he likes me anyway, and I can't take that for granted. I love him, and nothing anybody could say or do would make me give him up.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we get to end a chapter on goodfeels for once!
> 
> I hope you liked the chapter at least half as much as I did. And the best birthday present I could possibly imagine would be you telling me if you did :) I know I've kind of scared off a lot of readers because this material is kind of a bit heavy (Ha ha ha understatement), but I also know that some people at least are enjoying this, so I would LOVE hearing from you if you are.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> Edit (12/2/2013): So, guys. Chapter 10 is coming as a challenge. It ends up that I'm having to completely, 100% rewrite, write for the first time, or totally throw out about 75% of the material in this chapter, and seriously edit the other 25%. Much to my embarrassment, and for the first time since the beginning of The Limits of Control, I'm actually going to have to miss a deadline I set for myself ^^; I don't know exactly when it will be done, but no later than Friday the Thirteenth is probably a good guess. I'm really sorry about this, but I promise the story will be better for the wait.
> 
> I really appreciate your patience!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahahahaha hi guys. It's been a while.
> 
> Only two weeks late ^^; and this while I've seriously been working on it for anywhere from two to six hours every day (three is probably average). This chapter has been extremely frustrating, as I've finished quite a number of scenes only to realize that they don't work and that I have to toss them out. I've had to do that two or three times to many scenes. For this approximately 16,000 word chapter alone, I probably wrote a good 40,000 words, 24,000 of which will never be seen by eyes other than my own.
> 
> So the good news is that I finally finished it! The bad news is that I've been having some problems with my medication that have made writing far more challenging than it ought to be, and so I'm going to have to push back updates. I will now be publishing once every three weeks instead of two (but we saw how well that worked out last time, didn't we). Hopefully, all will go well, and three weeks per chapter should be enough time. *crosses fingers*
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter! I worked very hard on it *bows*
> 
> **Update 1/12/14: So, hi guys. You may have noticed that I'm late again, for which I apologize profusely.
> 
> Very likely, nobody will be surprised to hear that this fic is going on a posting hiatus -- although that does _not_ mean that I'm taking a break on it, mind you. I've just slowly but surely lost all of the buffer I started out with and haven't made any more. You may have gathered I've been going through kind of some personal issues recently, but 'recently' actually probably extends back six months or more, during which period I've been on at least eight different psychotropic medications, many of which have had heavily deleterious effects on my ability to even think complete thoughts -- to say nothing about my ability to write.
> 
> I'm off of everything now and hoping that this will start to get me all back in order again, but I can only do my best. So I hope you'll forgive me my absence while I try to make up for six months of lost time.
> 
> On that topic, I fully intend to be gone until I'm finished writing this damn thing. This means that I have no idea how long I'll be, and I don't want to give myself yet another deadline that I'll break and feel horribly guilty about. If you think you might still care about this thing I've been working on in four or five months, and you haven't put the story on any kind of alert yet, you might consider doing that now.
> 
> I'm really sorry about this. I hope you'll forgive me.
> 
> ~Mthaytr

**Chapter 10**

*

The sounds of cars on pavement and the light tones of conversation from the people surrounding him on the sidewalk made for a soothing background to the steady whirl of Roy's thoughts. It had been weeks, maybe even months, since he had visited the place he was now going: at first, his attention had been so consumed by his new relationship with Edward and by his political gambits that he could rarely find a spare moment to come back. Then, more recently, he had been so distracted by his other activities that he had barely even thought about it. Madame Christmas was unlikely to be happy about his long absence. As the brick building towards which he was walking grew larger with each step, so did the warm comfort of retracing familiar steps. He felt no apprehension whatsoever: after all, he was an adult now, and he could definitely, absolutely handle a meeting with his mother, even when she was at her most cutting. His briefcase swung beside him, brushing against his leg with each step.

When he finally reached the sidewalk in front of the building, he noted that the sign had been significantly touched up since the last time he had visited, and thank god for that: it had needed the assistance in a serious way. It was no wonder that it needed some help, as the sign had been there, more or less unchanged, since Roy had been ten. The now-fresh whites and blues of elegant, handwritten script read _“The Painted Lady.”_ Beside the words, the titular lady reclined, a luxuriously painted nude in the classical style, although the painter had draped some white cloth over her more private regions so as to afford her some token measure of modesty. Roy gave her a fond smile: she had been his idea when he was perhaps thirteen, and when the somewhat embarrassed artist they had hired had finished the commission, he had promptly named her Theresa, which sounded appropriately classy to him. Everybody there had always been very concerned with making sure the establishment stayed classy.

The four-paneled front door was of a red-stained wood, with two frosted-glass windows set into the top two panels. He took a deep breath and fortified himself: his mother was a force unto herself, and he had to be prepared for the meeting. He didn't knock before he entered, as it was a place of business, but the motion of the door pulled a string attached to a little copper bell, and it gave a high chime of welcome. 

“Welcome to the Painted Lady,” said a familiar, raspy voice: he turned around to face its owner. Madame Christmas paused, and stared at him for a moment before giving a sardonic little smirk, a newly-lit cigarette clenched between her teeth.

The woman sat on a tall stool behind the counter near the door that supported the cash register, her fancy dress and accoutrements doing nothing at all to curtail the mannishness with which she sat. She used her considerable weight in a way that few people could manage, to fully and effortlessly dominate all of the space she occupied. He was grateful to have learned that particular talent from her.

“Well, well. If it isn't my debauched, criminal, deviant prodigal son, finally back to see his old mother,” she said, with a grated laugh.

“Madame Christmas,” he said, giving her a look of fond amusement. “A pleasure to see you again. I've been away for too long,” he said. Ever since he had left home to attend the military academy, he had taken to calling her “Madame Christmas” in public instead of “mother” – she had insisted that he should be discreet about the fact that his mother was a brothel madam, as it wouldn't exactly be a shining spot on the record of a young up-and-coming military star. Although he had been uncomfortable with it at first, later, he had found himself glad for her insight – she had been quite correct. He had become so used to the name that he had begun to use it even when they were alone, less out of fear of discovery than out of comfortable habit.

“Damn right you have,” she said, corner of her lips still twitched up, and arched one sculpted eyebrow. “Long enough that I get to guilt-trip you mercilessly for at least two months. I've learned not to hold my breath waiting for you to come visit, though – you've moved on with your life, and have no time to spare for the woman who raised you,” she said, at least half teasing.

“You really didn't waste any time getting to that guilt trip, did you,” Roy said, chuckling. He walked forward into the bar, heels of his boots clicking on the wooden floor, and she shifted her weight to lean mostly on the forearm she had braced on the countertop.

“No point in that,” she said. Without missing a beat, she continued. “Nice to see you again, and so on.” Then, the look in her eyes grew sharp, almost gleeful. “Now, what's this I hear about you and some boy toy?” Roy winced: he hadn't quite expected their conversation to begin that way. Although he had prepared himself as best as he could to talk to her about Edward, the suddenness and direct method of her inquiry still left him fumbling. He shouldn't have been surprised, though: she had never had much desire to beat around the bush, and age had only dulled what little patience she had for such things. On another note, and he had a very good idea of how Edward would react to being called a 'boy toy,' and he prayed to whatever god was listening that she never did it in his earshot. “Imagine how surprised I was to wake up one morning and find my son all over the papers because of a lover you never even told your poor old mother about. While we're on the topic – _really?_ ” she asked, eyebrow arched and derisive. “You let the newspapers find out? I thought politicians were s'posed to be discreet and shit.”

Roy huffed a laugh and walked over to the bar, then sat down on the bar stool, setting the briefcase he carried down on the floor next to him. This was exactly why he had spent six months not telling her about his lover: even if this newspaper debacle had never happened and everything had gone on perfectly normally, she would have found _something_ in their relationship to tease him about. His stomach clenched as he thought of Edward – despite his best efforts to think of other things, he couldn't help but wonder how the interview had gone. He supposed that he would find out soon enough. 

“That's the idea, yes,” the general replied, not letting it affect him. “But I suggest you not call him a 'boy toy' where he can hear you. He's very proud, and doesn't take well to disrespect, and he's not the sort of person you'd want on your bad side.”

“Well, he can't hear me now, can he?” she said with amusement, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “So don't you worry your head about that. But I'll keep it in mind if you ever get around to introducing us,” she said: another little jab, easy for her as breathing. “But I can see how you wouldn't wanna make him mad. I've heard he's dangerous – he's the Fullmetal Alchemist, isn't he? That little kid you took under your wing six years ago.”

Roy gritted his teeth, but kept smiling pleasantly.

“ _Former_ Fullmetal Alchemist, yes – and I assure you, he's quite grown now.”

She snorted.

“I'm sure he is. You never were into the younger ones. If I remember right, you always did like 'em older, didn't you?” she said, then puffed out a stream of smoke.

Roy grimaced. This was not the trajectory he had imagined this conversation taking. Before he could say anything to defend himself, she had moved on.

“Anyway,” she continued, “why the hell did I find out about you being in a real relationship through the goddamn newspapers instead of a visit, or even a goddamn phone call? You know better than to keep me in the dark like that, Roy-boy.”

He had many years ago given up on fighting that particular nickname, and now looked on it with a kind of fond resignation. It was somewhat injurious to his dignity, but then again, it hardly mattered anymore. Did he really have any dignity left after his mother had seen photos of him having sex on the front page of the newspaper?

“Well,” he said, crisply, “we weren't exactly advertising it,” he said, which was very much true.

“I wasn't asking you to advertise it. I was just asking you to tell _me._ What, do you not think you can trust me to be discreet? I'm hurt,” she said, her grin sardonic. “And after everything I've done for you. For all these years, everybody here has kept their mouths shut about the espionage shit you ask us to do _and_ about your kinky sexcapades, and you're still so mistrustful?”

His smile remained pleasant.

“I have absolute faith in you and your team,” he said, instead of all the other things he wanted to say: he was confident that however his enemies had learned about his sexual preferences, it hadn't been through his mother or her employees. If any informant had known about his mother's work, a large section of Harriet's article would almost certainly have been dedicated to revealing his exploits with prostitutes and to his somewhat checkered upbringing. Besides, his mother was very careful about the people she hired, and for all of her gruff distance she treated them like family, and they did the same in return. There wasn't one of them he wouldn't have trusted with his career – which was as it should be, because with the work they did for him, he had to, on a daily basis.

“Good, and you ought to,” she said, walking over to the bar next to him and tapping the end of her cigarette onto an ebony-stone ashtray. “After all, I'd be a pretty bad intelligencer if I couldn't even keep tabs on my own employees, wouldn't I?” She didn't pause at all before turning the conversation back to a topic she found more interesting “But your boy sure is a pretty one, isn't he? Never thought I'd see the day you dated someone prettier'n you.”

Her matter-of-fact tone with which she made this observation made Roy laugh.

“He's quite stunning, yes. But he's many other things besides,” he said, his gaze unfocusing as he stared at something imagined, a half-smile on his lips. “He's brilliant and stubborn and brave and impossibly loyal. Despite all of the horrible things that have happened to him – and there have been more than I could even begin to tell you – he always gets back up again, and when he does he's stronger than ever. He's actually and literally a genius, and he can beat me in a fight, too. And he's so obstinately idealistic – he managed to get through five years of active military service and saving all of Amestris without killing a single human being, even though it kept getting him into all kinds of trouble. I really admire him. He truly is a great man.”

Madame Christmas made herself comfortable on the stool next to him and gave him a slanted smile, cocking an eyebrow again. She put the cigarette to her lips, drew in a long breath, then blew a gray plume out over her shoulder.

“Well, damn,” she grunted, watching him out of the corner of her eye. “Sounds to me like Roy-boy's in love.”

These words struck Roy like a wall, leaving him near-paralyzed in the aftershock.

“I'm... I'm sorry?” he finally managed, for want of anything else to say, all of his mental faculties dedicated to processing what he had just heard.

“Don't play dumb, it's not a good look on you,” she said, taking in another drag from her cigarette and letting the cloud of smoke out, slowly.

His mind raced, putting thoughts together. It wasn't that he had never considered the possibility of... love, between them: it was more that he had cut off all previous thoughts on the topic with an admonition mostly consisting of _don't even go there._ His mother kept watching him with a deeply amused satisfaction as he struggled for words.

“Don't tell me you haven't even noticed,” she said after a moment of watching him suffer, her eyebrow arching further. “The way you talk about him – it's so obvious. You basically worship the ground he walks on. Surely not even my idiot son is so oblivious as to have missed _that._ ”

Finally, the general's mouth began responding to the commands of his brain.

“I guess I am that oblivious,” he said, carefully, the great pieces of his life rearranging themselves in his head. “Sorry. You caught me a bit off-guard.”

_In love?_ he thought, the words coursing through him – then, he was swept up in the dawning euphoria of revelation. _Of course I am. He's perfect. Even the things about him that drive me crazy are perfect. How could I not have noticed for all this time?_

She kept watching him, a knowing look in her eye, as if she knew exactly what kind of tumult she was putting him through. After a long silence, he finally spoke.

“I suppose you're probably right,” he said, attempting to affect a casual tone and most likely failing. One beat. Two, and he couldn't sustain the fiction anymore. “Oh god,” he said, on a long breath, letting his head fall to be caught in the palm of his hand, elbow propped up on the wood of the bar. “Oh god. You're right.”

He could actually hear the smirk in her voice as she responded.

“Mothers usually are. We've got a sixth sense about these sort of things.” She blew half a lungful of cigarette smoke in his face, just to annoy him. “Now, let's get this straight. You're in a committed relationship for the first time in years – and it's about damn time, too,” she added, also to annoy him. “You've just realized you're in love with the man you're committed to. You think the sun shines out his ass, and obviously he likes you too, or he wouldn't put up with your bullshit. So why d'you look like somebody just died?”

Mustang coughed and waved the smoke out of his face, straightening again to look her in the eye.

“Those cancer sticks are going to kill you, you know that?” he muttered, contemplating the irony of being in a bar and needed a fortifying drink quite badly, and yet being completely unable to get one.

“Yeah, well, we're all gonna die: at least I'm choosing how I go,” she said, smile sardonic and maybe a little bit bitter. “But you didn't answer my question.”

He sighed, propping his second elbow on the table as well and lacing his fingers together.

“You have strange logic,” he said, tone both resigned and amused. He turned more serious as he continued. “And as for why I don't look happy – well, I'm confused and worried. I'm not entirely sure this revelation you've shared with me is good news.”

When she frowned, it carved crevices on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes.

“I'm not sure why it's news to you at all,” she said. “And why the hell isn't it good? Love seems like a pretty damn good thing to me.”

“Edward is...” he started, then paused, trying to collect all of the half-formed thoughts and emotions from the distant ends of his brain. “Well, the man's extremely volatile, and easily set off. I'm not confident that he wouldn't freak out at the idea of the kind of relationship commitment implied by a confession.” He took a deep breath. “That, and... He's really been going through a lot recently,” he said, unable to stop the tremor of exhaustion in his voice. “I really don't want to put anything else on his shoulders right now.”

The creases on her face became shallower, replaced by that shrewd look she so often got when she was thinking.

“Hm,” she said, in a way that invited further conversation, invited confidences. She had a knack for that: it was part of what made her so good at what she did.

Suddenly, in the face of the churning confusion in him and the weight of the whole situation pressing down on him, he was struck with the desire to ask for her help in this, to share it with her and so lighten his load. For all her roughness, Madame Christmas was kind, painfully incisive, and quite good at understanding people. Consequently, she was nearly as good at giving advice as Hughes, although she delivered it much less gently. 

Slowly, thoughtfully, he began.

“He got assaulted,” he said, quietly, halting. “Some military fuckers saw the articles and decided that he deserved punishment for the crime of enjoying the company of men – or maybe for the crime of being with me specifically, I don't really know. Ed was out drinking on Friday night, because – well, I had gotten really angry at him earlier in the day, and he was quite upset.” The guilt and regret still clenched at his insides when he thought of it. “I think he got drunker than he's ever been before – he's not usually much of a drinker. They jumped him when he left the bar.” He took a deep breath. “I know they didn't actually manage to rape him” – she stiffened as she heard the word – “but I know that they tried to. He only barely got away, and he was injured in the process. Possibly badly, I don't know. He's closed-off by nature, at least about important things. I basically had to force even that much information out of him.”

Her frown deepened with every word.

“I see,” she said, when he had made it evident that he wasn't going to continue. “And how is he doing, d'you think?”

The answer to that question was so complex that any response he could give he said would be so simplified as to be almost meaningless. He did his best anyway.

“I don't know,” he said with a long sigh of exhaustion, looking longingly at the bottles of liquor that lined the wall. “It's hard to say. I suppose he's as well as can be expected, and not well at all both at once. He's a bit... god,” he said, the word pressed out of him by a world of weight. “I'm sure you can imagine. You remember what Mary was like after everything.”

Many years ago, when Roy had been no older than eight or nine, Mary had been one of his mother's girls – young, bright, promising in all aspects of their trade. One night, about a year into her employment, a bunch of thugs decided that the fact that she was a prostitute meant that she had given up her right to consent. Roy had been too young to help deal with the emotional fallout at the time, but he had watched from a distance and listened through doors, worry troubling his innocence. The memory of it had never faded.

Shortly after the incident, his mother had called on some of her less-than-honorable contacts to take care of the men in question. Now, sitting in front of her with all of these thoughts whirling in his head, Roy very much envied her that freedom. Still, even back then, that act of justice – or vengeance? – hadn't helped Mary, hadn't helped her nightmares or the sudden sobbing fits that would attack from nowhere. And for her, as for Edward, touch had been a problem. When, after a few months, she had left his mother's employ, the young woman still hadn't recovered from the incident. He wondered how long it had taken for her to trust another man's touch.

Of course, Edward didn't seem to have been affected to nearly the degree that Mary had: but then, his incident hadn't been quite as bad as hers, and Edward had always been an extraordinary person in any case. He regularly took blows, both emotional and physical that would cripple lesser humans, and still managed to get back on his feet every time – even when he had to have a new one made for him to be able to do it.

Madame Christmas nodded, taking a moment to consider everything.

“I see,” she said. “And for some reason, you think that confessing your undying love for him would make things worse for him,” she said, voice toneless in quite a pointed way.

Those words pulled him suddenly out of his morose thoughts. He actually flushed to hear the first half of that sentence, half in embarrassment and half in shock.

“Undying love? I never said anything like that,” he said.

The smile she fixed on him was both fond and patronizing. Motherly – that was the word. He almost expected her to reach over and ruffle his hair.

“Yes, you did,” she said, wielding a smirk made to lightly ridicule, one that left no room for argument. “Don't be stupid. But why the hell do you think that would scare him off? Don't you think he'd want to know that no matter what kind of hullabaloo those folks outside rustle up, to know that no matter what happens to you or to him or whatever, you're not going anywhere?”

“He knows that already,” Roy mumbled, feeling very much like a child being scolded.

“Does he?” she said, a statement of disbelief. “You sure?”

Roy remained silent. His mother leaned in closer, her raspy voice intense and narrowed eyes fixed on him.

“You'd better damn well make sure he does, Roy Mustang,” she said, low. “I'm not gonna let you mess this up for yourself.”

That drink was beginning to sound even more appealing. Christ, she could really take it out of him sometimes.

“I don't plan to,” he replied. “But – this is just so confusing, you know?” he said, slumping forward to shift more weight to his elbows. “Edward is allergic to discussions about our relationship” – although to be fair, Roy himself hadn't been much better about it – “and he consistently goes out of his way to make sure I am kept unaware of his problems. And to make things worse, he has an uncontrollable wanderlust: whenever there's a problem, he tends to leave the place where said problem is. With everything that's been happening, I keep half-expecting to wake up one morning and find a note on my bedside table saying that he's on a train to Xing or Creta or something. I'm just afraid that if I say anything, I'll scare him to the breaking point, and he'll do just that.”

The woman in front of him took the last drag of her cigarette and dropped its lipstick-stained filter into the ashtray.

“Listen, kid. Every relationship's confusing as all hell. Everybody in the world's either afraid of commitment or way too obsessed with it. Still, people make it work somehow. You just gotta do the best you can. He hasn't hopped a train yet, has he?”

Roy shook his head. No, not yet – Ed had avoided such flights of fear and impulse ever since that mess with Ms. Rockbell had been resolved, much to Roy's relief.

The opposing woman nodded, as if to say that it should have been obvious.

“Well, let's do the math, here. This shit's been pretty bad for him, it looks like – and you also told me that you two had a bad fight a couple days ago, but he's still around. What does that tell you?”

The familiar bar room was comforting in its quiet, the yellow light of old electric lamps giving the place a warm, faded glow. Roy laughed, softly, her straightforward logic beginning to unwrap a heavy weight from him. He began again to feel that euphoria through the cracks in his worry.

“It tells me that I'm being an idiot,” he finally said, giving a smile more with his eyes than with his lips.

“Damn straight,” she declared. “Now you have to go tell him how you feel.”

The thought set his head racing: once he dealt with his first problems, of course new ones would appear. Yes, he was going to have to say something, but now the specter of rejection loomed before him. A deep breath filled his lungs, slow and steady against the frantic beat of his heart. If he was rejected... well, it didn't matter, in a way. In either case, he wouldn't be the one to end the relationship. He would keep going for as long as Ed wanted to, whether his feeling was reciprocated or not. Roy Mustang could easily deal with rejection. He had felt much deeper wounds than that.

This was true, but it didn't make the actual prospect of rejection any less frightening. He knew, though, that it would be worth the risk.

“I will.” He paused, thinking: his mother let him. He still felt so painfully unprepared to handle Edward's problems: his pride could certainly survive asking for a bit more advice, so after a moment, he continued. “But what should I do to help him get through this mess? He won't let himself be touched, and one of the major foundations of our relationship has always been sex.” He could see her repressing her amusement at the last part of that sentence, but he pretended not to notice. “Now, all of a sudden, we can't behave the way we have been accustomed to behaving around each other, and we don't know what to do instead. I'm used to helping him get over his insecurities in a very particular way,” he said, trying to approach the topic delicately. “Now there's this awkward, horrible space in our conversations, where not so very long ago I might have just – well, you know,” he said, with a descriptive wave of his hand.

From her coat pocket, Madame Christmas procured another cigarette and placed it between her painted lips, looking at Roy expectantly. With the sigh of one whose trials are endless, he removed his glove from his pocket and slipped it on, then snapped. The tiniest spark and greatest exercise of his self-control allowed a crackle of fire across the space between them to light just the tip of her cigarette.

The look on her face as she drew in her next breath of cancer was both satisfied and, gratifyingly, impressed. He so rarely impressed her that he savored the feeling when he did.

“Well,” she began, slowly, the word over-enunciated for effect, “looks to me like this gives you a chance to base your relationship on something other than sex, doesn't it.” The woman had an irritating tendency to end her statements with a hybrid of a question and a statement that made the answer seem obvious and Roy feel quite stupid. “So if you're worried about that, don't be – it's an opportunity, not a curse. If you're just missin' the sex, jack off. You can handle a bit of deprivation. It's good for you. Builds character.”

A deep horror bloomed in him as his mother's words brushed past him: she had always been able to remain businesslike while talking about sex – of _course_ she could: sex was, after all, her business – but as a son talking to his mother, he had never shared the ability, and actually found it quite mortifying when directed at him. He worked his mouth, trying to come up with some kind of response, some way to tactfully change the subject. After a moment, an idea came to him.

“But what if he doesn't trust me anymore?” he finally said. “It seems like he's been going to even greater lengths to cut me out of his life recently. For instance, I had a radio interview scheduled for today, but when I showed up at my office, I found that he had, entirely without asking me, changed up the plan and done the interview himself instead.. I'm still not sure what his plan was, exactly, he certainly didn't trust me to know about it.”

She looked at him with a flash of disbelief, the bright end of her cigarette flaring bright orange as she took in a breath, then drew the thing away.

“Or maybe he didn't tell you because he knows you're an overprotective worrywart and didn't want to bother you. Or maybe there are a million other possible reasons for him not telling you right away that you apparently haven't considered,” she said. “Besides, have you actually asked him about it?”

“...Well, not yet. But I plan to, as soon as he's home and answering his telephone.”

“You can't get on to him about not telling you things if you've never asked. So stop jumping to conclusions,” she said. She continued on without pause, as if considering that topic absolutely closed. “And about how to help him get better, I'm sure you're doing just fine on your own. You know the basics: don't push him. Make sure he knows you're there for him and not judging him. Listen to him when he talks.”

Then, her eyes turned sharp, diamondlike.

“As for the men who did this: you want me to take care of 'em? Is that why you came here?”

The thought struck him as an arrow, the offer so utterly tempting that he almost gave in and reached for it. Most likely, no-one would trace it back to him. She was very good, and so were her contacts. He could get out of it free of any blame if he wanted to – but a number of things stopped him. Most importantly, Major Hawkeye had reminded him that he was not above the law, and that in order to have any legitimacy as a democratic leader, he would have to hold himself to the rule of law he enforced. If he went about ignoring laws as soon as they became inconvenient, he would be no better than any of them, he reminded himself, eyes narrowed. 

Also, he had yet to ask Edward what he wanted to be done about it. A trial would bring his assault screaming out into the open: did he want that? On the other hand, wouldn't he be upset at Roy if the general went for revenge rather than justice? Was the only option that preserved both Ed's dignity and Roy's morals to just do nothing? He didn't know.

An unmourned, ignominious death would suit those fuckers best, but...

“No. Thank you. Tempting,” he said, harshly, “but no. I'll deal with them.” Somehow, he added silently. He let out a long breath, allowing the tension to leave him as well, and saw the woman in front of him mirror the relaxation. “I very much appreciate your offer and all of your advice. However, there was another reason I came: I have a favor to ask of you.”

Madame Christmas snorted, grey smoke puffing out her nose.

“'Course you did. You never come for anything else anymore,” she said, with a long-suffering sigh that was more than half feigned. “Ungrateful brat.” The expression melted away in an instant to leave behind a sharp smile. “Now, what can I do for ya, Roy-boy?”

*

Although Alphonse's day had begun at the lab, he unfortunately couldn't finish it there: shortly after the departure of the police squad from the premises, he had made his excuses to Evelyn and made his way to Central Headquarters to begin his other work.

Al almost felt guilty about how much he had been enjoying this break from his normal routine: as much as he truly did love alchemy, this investigations work was challenging and thrilling and much more exciting than the daily routine of science. Walking down the city's main thoroughfare, feeling the wind across his face and listening to the calls and cries of stall vendors and tourists and shoppers and shopkeepers, he remembered how much he had loved being outside, how much he missed the spontaneity and freedom of adventure. 

On the other hand, he knew that, when he was in his lab, he was doing a good deed for the whole human species. And he enjoyed it, really he did: laboratory alchemy was another kind of intellectual challenge, and one he was suited to quite well. Really, most of the time he liked the fact that he was a lab researcher. Alchemy was what he was good at, what he loved most of all, and it had always been there for him from the beginning – so now, going out and about and dabbling in all this investigative work felt a bit like cheating on a steady girlfriend.

There was an element of that, certainly, to his guilt – but also, sometimes, when he found himself enjoying a particular bit of investigative work, it occurred to him that he was in some way deriving pleasure from something that was causing his brother great pain. He tried not to let himself dwell on it, because he was doing his best and that was all he could do.

When he arrived at the public records house, he found that contrary to his expectations and much to his disappointment, it was in no way comforting like a library: the marble of its walls made it look an enormous, imposing monolith on the outside and feel uncomfortably cold on the inside. Creeping across polished floors that looked like they had never seen a shoe before, Alphonse couldn't help but wonder if people were even allowed in this building. He reminded himself that of course they were: this was a _public_ records house, and public meant people, and besides, he had looked up library hours beforehand. Regardless of this fact, the librarian watched him as if by his very presence he were committing a crime, accusing Al of something he hadn't even done yet.

The man's expression only got haughtier as he answered Al's embarrassed questions, his judgmental stare silently asking what kind of imbecile wouldn't know where Section C was. 

“'Right between Section B and Section D,'” Al muttered irritably once he decided that he had finally walked out of earshot of the desk, repeating the other man's supercilious declaration. “Well _yeah,_ of course it is – but that information would help a lot more if you had bothered to tell me where Sections B and D were.”

Regardless of the sullen unhelpfulness of the library attendant, he found Section B – and consequently, C – without too much trouble, and to his great delight also found that the section had ladders on _tracks,_ so you could just roll one over to the next set of bookcases in order to get at the book on the top. He spent at least five minutes sliding the ladder around to climb up it, then down again, then move the ladder to a new spot, as if just to prove to himself that it did what it was supposed to.

_Someday, I want a library tall enough that I can put a rolling ladder in it,_ he thought distractedly as he finally set the ladder where he wanted it and pulled the first batch of likely records off of the shelf.

It took him slightly more than two hours to find the file he was looking for. Faint elation greeted the sight of it: he had considered the possibility that the file had been removed from the public record, if someone important had really wanted to cover their tracks. But it seemed that nobody had thought this particular record was enough of a liability to suppress it – _all the better for us,_ Al thought with distinct satisfaction.

In his hand, he held the formal declaration of suit against Guy Harriet for the crime of having written and printed libel that did irreparable harm to Colonel Maxwell Grimmler. Al skimmed through the document: nothing particularly interesting there. What was wasn't there – the file folder was empty but for this one document. He might have thought someone had just had the other files suppressed, except that why would that person have left just this one if they wanted to do that?

Scanning the folder, he noticed a tiny black set of numbers printed in the bottom corner. Closer examination told him that it read “1 – 3”: a comparison with the other folders led him to deduce that the first number referred to the quantity of documents contained within, and the second to the quantity of pages. Another glance through the file confirmed that there was indeed one document of three pages: nothing seemed to be missing from the folder. He gave a sigh of relief.

Further scrutiny revealed another sign, and he set himself to deciphering the tiny, nearly illegible scrawl of what was probably intended to be writing near the bottom of the third page.

After several minutes worth of utilizing deciphering techniques worthy of a proper codebreaker, Al finally managed to read:

_Acquitted._

He shot to his feet again, feeling unreasonably victorious: he knew that this wasn't exactly going to be the final nail in Harriet's coffin, but it was, at least, the beginning of a lid. In his hand, he held proof that Harriet had been accused of committing libel before, but had gotten out of it without ever being tried. Maybe the person who had written that one hurried word on the last page had been ashamed, had wanted to pretend that they weren't helping a man to escape justice. 

_Besides, if Harriet had been tried, there would have been way more documents,_ he thought, which was more logical but also less exciting.

Alphonse copied the document down into his notebook, memorizing the name of the judge who would have been presiding, had the trial proceeded – the Honorable Jane Myrdoch. He was beginning to think he might have to pay her a visit.

But first things first. He put all of the files back exactly where they belonged, arranged his notebook in his bag so it wouldn't get squished, and set off towards the front door, blithely ignoring the way the librarian's irritated stare followed him across the whole entry hall.

It took him less than two minutes from exiting the records house to find a pay phone booth. He rustled in his bag for change, came up fifty cenz short of the cost of the call, then scrounged around the sidewalk area until he found a hundred cenz piece lying in one of the sidewalk grooves. Delighted, he picked it up, paid the telephone fee, and dialed a number that he had written in the margin of the front page of his notebook. 

This really had been his lucky day. He liked to think it wasn't over yet, though.

The receiver picked up on the other end.

“Hello?” the voice asked. “Graham Haskell speaking.”

“Hi Graham! This is Alphonse Elric.”

“Ah, Alphonse. Just the guy I wanted to hear from.”

*

“Now, what can I do for ya, Roy-boy?” Madame Christmas asked him.

Almost every time he came by for a favor, she grumbled and complained and made a big deal of it, but he knew that, despite her token resistance, she really enjoyed it: although being the proprietor of a bar and brothel was amusing and made her good money, they both knew that intelligence work was really her calling.

“Sorry for being such an ungrateful son,” he said, fondly, before pulling up his briefcase from where it sat at his feet to set it between them on the bar table. “But of course I come and ask you for favors: you're the best at what you do, and you know it.”

She gave a nasal laugh at the undisguised compliment, smile wide and thin.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, kiddo,” she said, amused. “But I don't actually mind doin' you favors. Just come see little old me sometimes.”

“Well, as always, thank you,” he said, giving her a slanted smile. “This is very important.”

“I know,” she said, resting her elbow on the table and letting her hand dangle off the side. “What d'you need?”

He started the story from the beginning, with Guy Harriet and their crusade to discredit the man sometime prior to the trial so that his testimony would count for nothing on the stand. As she listened, she curled up the painted corners of her lips and blew out a puff of smoke.

“Way ahead of you, kiddo. I've been looking into that bastard all week.”

Roy concealed his surprise at her response.

“Oh? And what have you found?” he asked, voice even.

He really shouldn't have been surprised: of course Madame Christmas, being a curious person and just a hair away from “busybody,” wouldn't be able to see that kind of thing in the papers and then just do nothing about it. 

“Well, to start with, I've found that Harriet isn't really well-liked within his profession. One or two of his colleagues are under the impression that he's maybe a bit corrupt,” she said, with a hint of sarcasm subtle as a knife to the back. “They say that maybe he's more devoted to money than he is to journalistic integrity.”

“Imagine that,” Roy murmured. “It's funny, I find it difficult to believe that said colleagues are terribly outraged about this offense against their profession when they themselves have been busily publishing articles about Edward and me too, none of which are any more balanced or fact-based than Harriet's.” Madame Christmas snorted.

“True, but _they're_ not being paid off-the-books by some mysterious figure to write those articles: they're doing it to increase the number of papers they sell, and that makes it okay. That's just free market. There's a huge difference between lying for a paycheck from a politician and doing the same thing for one from the general public.”

Roy smiled, grimly.

“Of course there is.” He laced his fingers together, leaning forward to put his weight on his elbows. “I'm happy to note that you've already come to the conclusion that Harriet is acting under direction from someone else.”

“'Course he is. I suspect I know who Harriet's patron is, too.” Roy found himself nearly holding his breath. She turned a sharp look on him. “I'm sure you're familiar with one General Mikhael Weimar.”

The words hit him in a flood of relief, threaded by a crackle of excitement.

“I am very familiar with that man,” he said, harshly. “And I'm glad that you've come to the same conclusion. My team has yet to find anything concrete linking Harriet and General Weimar, although he was my bet for puppeteer as well. He is my most stalwart political opponent, and he acted so strangely vicious towards me immediately after the publication of the paper that I began to suspect him immediately. Also, he is one of those who would gain the most if I fell: simply put, I'm a threat to him.”

“Well,” said Madame Christmas, “I wouldn't say that I've _found_ something. It's more of a rumor than anything. Call it a damn good guess, based on years of finely-honed investigative skills.”

Well, at least there was no question as to where Roy's modest streak had come from. He gave half a smile and responded.

“That's better than nothing, by far.”

“Yeah,” she said, around the cigarette held between her teeth. The tip glowed bright, then faded again. “So, then: d'you want me to focus on investigating Weimar?”

Roy shrugged.

“Either of them. Both of them. Anything you can be find out will be helpful,” Roy told her. “General Weimar has already convinced the council to temporarily strip me of my powers as a general, which has interrupted me in the middle of very important work,” he said, his voice and eyes both taut. “Yes, I'm a bit bitter, but I also need this to be over as quickly as possible so I can continue doing what I need to do before something awful happens.” He unhitched the clasps on the briefcase that lay between them and opened it to reveal stacks of papers, all in order. After giving her a moment to glance over its contents, he kept on. “This case is full of everything we've managed to collect so far: detailed political profiles of the men in question, what history we've been able to gather, that sort of thing. The trial is in just under two weeks. I need to have something damning by a few days before then, if you can manage. Do you think you can do that?”

Madame Christmas smirked.

“Don't you worry yourself about that, Roy-boy,” she said, as if absolutely confident of her imminent success. “But don't you need proof exonerating you, too?”

Roy sighed – even thinking about this left him frustrated and tired, but he couldn't afford to lose hope.

“My team of military intelligence officers is handling that side of the case, but I'm afraid there's little proof to be had,” he said, grimly. “Mostly, I'm focusing on turning the tide of public opinion, which is the court in which this trial will really play out, which was what I had hoped to do on the radio interview I had scheduled for today.” He _really_ hoped that Edward's contribution would help, not make things worse. “In any case, you focus on Harriet and Weimar. We'll take care of everything else.”

“Sounds good. You just leave it to me and the kids,” she replied, referring to her employees with the fond nickname. “We'll get it done.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling. “I'm really very grateful for your assistance.”

“Maybe grateful to the tune of twice my normal fee?” she said rather than asked, with half a grin. Roy gave a deep laugh in return.

“Of course, if you insist. Now, I have another, smaller favor to ask: can I borrow your telephone?”

No objections were offered: she waved him over to the one on the wall in the corner of the room. Thanking her, he moved to it, spinning the dial in the pattern of Edward's familiar number before leaning up against the wall, receiver held up to his ear, and he listened to the jangling ring from the other end. He heard it five, six, seven times, before the faint clacking alerted him that the phone had been picked up.

“Hello?” said Edward, sounding more than a bit wary. Roy supposed he didn't really blame the other man for his hesitancy: he himself looked at his telephone with more than a bit of trepidation these days. You never could know who would be on the other line.

“Edward,” he said, warmly. “Nice to hear your voice again. How are you doing?”

“Oh, it's you, Mustang,” Edward said, sounding at least a bit relieved – or so the general liked to think. Upon reflection, Roy found himself amused by how, in their relationship, Ed calling him by his last name was curiously appropriate. “Not bad, can't complain.”

Couldn't, or wouldn't. Roy suspected the latter.

“That's good,” he said, deciding not to press the issue. “How did the interview go?”

The frozen pause on the other end of the line indicated the younger man's nervousness.

“I guess you _would_ have heard about that by now, huh.”

“Yes. Major Hawkeye told me shortly after noon, when I first saw her. I must admit I was surprised.”

“Look, I'm sorry,” Edward replied, strained, like he was worried, scared of how Roy was going to react – had he really acted harshly enough towards his young lover recently that Edward was afraid of him now? The thought brought guilt to his stomach. “I –” 

“There's no need to apologize,” Roy interrupted with a short laugh, hoping to lighten the mood. “None whatsoever.”

The pause on the other end of the line sounded startled. Normally, he would say that silences couldn't sound like anything, but Edward was rather a special case: he didn't know how _not_ to be expressive.

“What? You're not mad at me?” came the returning question.

“Of course not,” Roy replied, keeping his voice calm and reasonable. “As I said, I was quite surprised when I heard, and a bit sad that you felt the need to go behind my back,” he said, lightly, trying to express what he felt without accusing. “But I'm not mad at all, I promise. I'm happy and honored that you would be willing to put yourself in the public eye for me,” he said, letting his eyes fall closed to block out the room around him.

“Uh, yeah, no prob,” Edward said, still sounding surprised. As if finally collecting himself, his tone became more gruff, dismissive, perhaps embarrassed. “Don't go makin' a big deal out of it or anything. It was nothin' major.”

Roy smiled, growing warm inside, and when he opened his eyes saw Madame Christmas smirking at him relentlessly from the bar.

“Of course,” he replied, curtailing his expression immediately, as if he had been caught doing something embarrassing. “Thank you, regardless. In any case, I was wondering if you were busy at the moment? I thought perhaps I could join you to listen to the program.”

There was a long pause. Finally, Ed replied.

“Um, prob'ly better not,” he said. “I guess what I mean is I'd rather you not.” Roy's brow pulled down, creasing as he frowned.

“I don't understand,” Roy said, something strange catching inside him. 

“I dunno,” Edward said, trying to sound light and unaffected, and doing a damn good job of it – but Roy wasn't fooled. “I guess I'm just happy spending some time alone with this old Nicolaus book I got my hands on a couple weeks ago. With everything that's been goin' on, I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I just want a couple of hours. You can come over after the show, if you want,” he said, too casually to actually be casual.

“I suppose if you think it best,” the general said, his heart sinking. “I was really hoping to get to see you, though.” He really didn't understand: Edward didn't want to see him? Had something else happened that was making things even worse?

“Eh, it's only a couple of hours more. I'll see you then, 'kay?” he said: without another word between them, the immediate, harsh sound of the receiver clicking onto its cradle on the other end cut off their conversation – then, there was silence. Slowly, confused, Roy put down his own receiver. His mother gave him a look as he walked over, arching an eyebrow.

“What, you get dumped?” she asked, in that cutting way that served her as teasing. Roy's returning laugh was strained.

“No. Nothing like that. He's just – still acting odd, and I'm worried.” Being in love was a strange, frightening thing. He had almost forgotten.

Madame Christmas watched him, tapping two manicured fingernails on the bar.

“You shouldn't worry so much,” she finally said. “It's no good for you. You know you two'll be fine.”

Roy wished he could be as unyieldingly certain as she was. He walked over to the bar, and sat down on the stool next to her again.

“I hope so,” Roy said, the closest he could come to fervent agreement. “So, would you mind terribly if I stuck around here until seven or so?” He didn't want to go back home and just sit, alone, in his living room, to wait without company or distraction until he was allowed to go where he wanted to go.

“Planning to listen to the radio show here?” she asked. The answer to this question was too obvious for he to bother waiting for a response. “Sure. We've got a radio in the back lounge room, and nobody's rented the place out for today. It's a good thing you're staying, anyway, 'cause there are a few girls who'd be devastated if you dropped in without saying hello, and we all know how much you hate making girls sad,” she said, and he couldn't tell how much of the comment was genuine and how much of it was pointed barb. “Besides, I'm going to want to look over all of these files, and I'm sure I'll have a couple of questions once we're done,” she said, shutting the case, latching it, then standing. “More convenient if you just stick around.”

Roy smiled, tiredly, and rubbed a hand through his hair.

“You're a miracle, Madame Christmas. Thank you for everything.”

“'Course I am. Glad to see you've finally noticed.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh, good. It's finally four. Let me make you a drink,” she said, walking around to the other side of the bar, the fur around the neck of her coat swaying with each step.

Roy laughed.

“Isn't it a bit early for that?”

“Of course not. Like I said, it's four.” She dropped two ice cubes into a glass, then reached over to pick up a bottle of brandy. “I draw the line at making drinks before four in the afternoon,” she said with finality, as if that were the one a moral boundary she simply refused to cross.. She filled the cup until the liquid had very nearly reached the lip. “Wouldn't want my son to turn into an alcoholic, now would I?” she said with a curled smile, pushing the over-full brandy glass across the bar. To her credit, not a drop spilled.

“No,” the man murmured, amused, and took the glass from her. “We couldn't have that, could we?”

*

_“I love him, and nothing anybody could say or do is gonna make me give 'im up.”_

Clear words, unimpeded by radio static, echoed around the back room at the Painted Lady, a trick of Roy's hearing making them sound like they were spoken in Edward Elric's voice.

A sharp shot of adrenaline passed through him, making every sensation more acute, every sound crisp down to its last detail. His mother smirked at him relentlessly, knowingly, from the plush armchair she occupied. 

God, it couldn't possibly actually be Ed speaking. Why would he say in front of an audience of thousands what he had never said in private? It didn't make any _sense,_ why would he be so public about something like this when he was normally so painfully, aggressively defensive?

_“You love him?”_ he heard, through the metal grate of the radio speakers. _“So this isn't just a passing fling? Yet another politician's tryst?”_

The half-laugh that Edward gave in response was barely audible, but important.

_“We know each other way too well for that.”_ Then, more seriously: _“At some point, after you've been through so many things together, you've got a bond, see. I really couldn't just walk off and leave him, and he couldn't just drop me, either. I've known this man for a third of my life, and in ways that are obvious and not so obvious, he helped make me who I am.”_ He paused, and Rebecca let him: she was clever enough to know that anything she could say would only serve to lessen the impact of his admission. _“Everybody's got it all wrong. This isn't a power thing or just a sex thing. Nobody did anything wrong, unless bein' in love with someone's wrong. And it's **not** , because that would be stupid,”_ he said, with forceful conviction: Roy's stomach flipped.

They had kept their relationship private, unexamined, and when a newspaper article had brought the whole thing smashing out into the open it had hit them hard: but now, Ed was there on the radio, taking matters into his own hands. Of course he was: Edward Elric was the kind of man who insisted on being the master of his own destiny.

The warm feeling continued to grow in the general as he realized the extent of the younger man's brilliance. This was what they had needed: in one stroke, Edward had both injected hope into their difficult campaign and expertly garnered public sympathy in a way that would – hopefully – not come off as politically motivated. Politics was only part of it – though, to be fair, it was really quite a large part.

For strategic purposes, Roy and Edward they needed to portray themselves as victims. The longer their struggles continued, the more Roy began to realize just how much his need to appear as the victim, as the injured party, conflicted with his need to remain strong and confident to the public eye, so that the populace could regain its respect for and faith in him as a leader. He had yet to think of a way to reconcile the two – but apparently, without telling him, his younger lover had done exactly that. Consequently, Edward – selfless, beautiful, brilliant Edward – had decided to take a bullet for him, exposing his vulnerabilities for public display so that Roy wouldn't have to.

All of these considerations – the practical, the calculating – were pushed away, unimportant, when once again, his focus flickered back to an unrelenting thought.

_Edward loves me._

For a bare moment, the shadow of doubt in him wondered if Edward was just saying it for the radio, for the sake of the audience, wondered if maybe he didn't really mean it. But the general knew better almost as soon as he thought it: Edward was honest to a fault, and even if he weren't, Roy knew that he would never, _never_ lie about something like this. 

_God, he **loves** me. What did I do to deserve that?_

The track of his thoughts kept coming back to it, unable to leave it alone.

_I wonder what he's thinking right now._

In Roy's imagination, the younger man was sitting at home, tense, afraid of how the general was going to react – afraid that the other man didn't love him back, that he had just bared himself to rejection and humiliation. Sometimes, Edward's self esteem was absurdly, criminally low – this was one of those cases, because how could the answer to that unasked question be anything but obvious?

Did he love Edward, with his flash of bright hair and golden eyes, with his sharp-toothed smile and his sharper tongue? Did he love the man's fierce protectiveness, his single-minded determination, his unwavering loyalty and conviction? Did he love the sight of Edward sprawled out on his couch, book in hand, his nose wrinkling in concentration as he read?

Did he love Edward? Of course he did. He struggled to see why anyone would not.

The rest of the interview passed in an euphoric blur, as he listened to the weave and twist of two voices on the radio, Edward pulling out all stops to be intelligent and witty and altogether charming.

When the last question had been asked, and Rebecca's last narration finished – _“a remarkable young man in an unusual situation, resilient even under intense pressure,”_ but of course Roy had known that already – he sat for a long moment, in stunned silence.

“Well,” Madame Christmas said, looking entirely too smug, “I saw _that_ coming from a mile away.” That burst a short, disbelieving laugh from Mustang. “What, don't tell me you were surprised?”

“Stunned, actually. Flabbergasted, even,” he said, smiling as he stood, reaching into his pocket to finger Edward's folded apology note.

“'Zat so? I guess that's just because you're too stupid to see what's right in front of you,” she said, fondly. The sounds of laughter and conversation from the bar outside resonated through the closed door as she paused. Mustang went to the rack by the door and swept his trenchcoat back on again. “That's quite some boy you've got there, isn't he?”

“More than you even know,” he said, and made for the door.

*

The effect of the radio broadcast on Al was such that he completely forgot about the tea he had been drinking, his teacup resting in his hand and the liquid cooling, unmourned. Ed's coffee sat in front of him on the table, similarly neglected.

How had he not known this? He usually knew what Edward was thinking and feeling miles before Edward knew it himself, or at least figured it out at the same time. How had he missed something so crucial? Sometimes it felt like he didn't even know his brother anymore.

When the broadcast was over, Alphonse turned to his brother, brown eyes wide and brain working furiously. The older man's face was considerably paler than was his norm: he looked spooked, on edge. _Is he scared of how I'm going to react to hearing this?_

“Brother...” he said, trying not to sound hurt, because he wasn't. “You never told me any of these things. You're... in love with him?” He knew that by all rights should be happy, right then: if he had been a good brother, a good person, he would have been. Al had always considered himself to be a good person – so what was that emptiness in his chest that weighed on him so heavily?

“Um, yeah,” Ed replied, frowning, the tone of his brother's question seeming to take him by surprise. “You okay, Al? Is something wrong?”

“No, not at all! I'm happy for you, Brother.”

The lines on Ed's forehead deepened. Around him the orange-dark of sunset fought with the yellow of the electric light, casting purple shadows off of everything in a spread of twos and threes.

“I don't believe you. What's wrong?”

_What's wrong? Nothing. Nothing, except that you're hiding from me, that I'm seeing you slip away and nothing I'm doing is helping to bring you back. Brother... After everything we've done, after everything we've been for each other, is **this** going to be the thing that tears us apart?_

Back when his face had been made of steel, he had at least been able to hide his emotions if he so chose – that had been one of its sparse advantages. He had little such skill with his human face.

“Al?” Ed prompted, breaking through the stream of his thoughts. It occurred to Al that by not saying anything, he was indulging in exactly the kind of bad habit for which he was so constantly berating his brother. Some little sad part of him wanted to curl up to hide the tender wound where he had just been cut, and another part almost felt vindicated in coveting his secrecy: Ed kind of deserved to see how it felt to be kept in the dark.

But he didn't want to be a hypocrite, and he really didn't want to hurt his brother, either, and he was bad at lying anyway.

“Sorry, Brother. I just worry about you, you know?” A thick silence suffused the air. “I have no idea what's happening in your life anymore.”

The deepening of the frown on Ed's face was Al's fault.

“You're worried about me because I'm...” Ed's sentence drifted off into mumbling that Al couldn't understand, though he could make a good guess as to what the other man had meant. They would be hard for him to say, Al guessed. They had to be. But – apparently, they had been easier to say on a radio broadcast in front of thousands of people than they were in front of his little brother, who was devoted to him and adored him and wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. “I thought that bein' in love was supposed to be a good thing,” the older brother finished.

The tide of Al's pent-up frustration pressed against the dam of his willpower, but his determination was stronger, for the moment.

“Of course it is,” he replied, smiling. “Really. I'm happy for you. You two are good for each other, I think, and as much as you pretend that you don't, it's obvious that you care about each other. I'm glad you've finally gotten around to admitting it.” Saying something like that would have been a major challenge for Edward – he hoped Roy appreciated it.

A flush of pink colored the tips of Ed's ears.

“Yeah, whatever,” the elder said, sounding at once surly and pleased. “It's no big deal.”

“I think that the General might think it's a big deal,” said Al, teasing. “I bet he's on his way here right now for smoochies or –”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” said Edward, scowling, but without malice. Then, his eyes fixed back on his little brother and the expression fell. For the second time in as many minutes, Al cursed his inability to hide his emotions: they were probably written all over his face. Edward continued. “But what the hell are you worried about me for?” he asked, softly. “This isn't nothin to get all worried about. I can handle myself.”

“Oh, brother,” said Al – then, as if the dam broke, he couldn't keep his thoughts in any more and didn't want to. “I'm not worried about you because of _that._ I'm worried about you because of the million other things in your life that you haven't told me about. I'm” – he pushed on through it, though the words hurt for him to say – “worried about _us_ because of that.” His eyes were open wide, fixed on Ed, as he fought to keep back the rush of sudden emotion. “You spend so much time trying to keep me out. I feel like you don't trust me anymore.”

“Al...” said Edward, fisting his hands tightly around his coffee mug. “Don't be stupid,” he told his little brother, gentle, but nonetheless admonishing. “Nothing in this world or any other is gonna take me away from you. After everything we did to get you back, there's nothing stronger than us.” He flashed Al a familiar grin and sat up straighter. “We're the Elric Brothers. I'm nothin' without you, and you – well, actually you'd probably manage fine without me,” he said with a laugh. “But we're a set. A package deal. Whether I love _you_ or not has never been a question.”

The swimming unsteadiness that overtook Al's vision was perfectly normal, and had nothing whatsoever to do with tears.

“But... Brother...” He tried to collect himself again, but when he continued, the words were choked. “Still. Did I... did I really have to find out about this from the radio? You couldn't have talked to me about it?” He paused to try to work the tightness from his throat: after a moment, he recovered enough to speak. “You never tell me what's happening with you, or what you're thinking. And you tell the General all that stuff, apparently.” He clenched his teacup harder, fought with his vision to keep it straight. “Or, I don't know. Maybe you don't tell him about it – I don't even know enough about you anymore to know for sure. But you have deep conversations with him while I'm not there, about things that I don't even know about. You say you'll tell me stuff later, but you never really do. I just feel like you're cutting me out.”

Ed actually flinched visibly when Al said that, as if he had attacked from behind, and Al felt bad immediately, although he couldn't find it in himself to regret his honesty. There was a silence that was too long to be comfortable.

“Are you talking about yesterday evening?” he finally asked, with a look on his face that the younger easily recognized as guilt.

“Yeah,” said Al: maybe that wasn't when this feeling, this worry, had started, but dinner the evening before had certainly been when it had consolidated into something recognizable.

“Ah,” he said, then paused. Haltingly, he began again. “The situation... isn't what you think it is,” Edward muttered, staring at his coffee mug, and at the gold-silver twist of his hands around it. “The radio program is the first Mustang's heard of this, either. That was the first time I ever told anybody,” he said, and Al's eyes widened – Really? Ed had confessed for the first time on a _radio_ program? Oh god, no wonder his older brother had been acting so nervous about the whole thing – he wasn't worried about what _Al_ would think. He was worried about General Mustang. Al wasn't sure whether this made him feel better or worse, but his brother went on before he had a chance to decide. “And as for the conversation last night... well, that whole thing was kind of us fighting about the fact that I _wouldn't_ tell him anything. 'S not just you. I'm stupid with everybody else, too,” he said, bitterly.”

Alphonse had the immediate sense that he was treading on something dangerous, and that this was the wrong time to do that. Even he couldn't always be good at listening to those sorts of feelings, though.

He wanted to be happy for his brother. Really, he did. He wanted to see Ed smile, unencumbered: he hadn't, in what was growing to seem like forever but upon reflection had only been about a week, since he had made chocolate chip pancakes in their kitchen. _Really? Only a week? Is that all?_

“I know that you love me, Brother. I just wish that you would talk to me,” said Al, putting a hand out across the table to rest on top of Ed's.

Immediately upon contact, all of the muscles in his brother's body tensed up: his eyes went wide, stare locking on their hands – his body gave a jerk as if to pull away from his Al's touch, but stopped himself. They were left there, the air of the room indescribably awkward, the skin where they touched burning. On instinct, Al drew away, a shock of inexplicable guilt hitting him.

The noise and shake of a slamming front door startled them both out of that horrible moment: they looked over to see Roy striding through their living room towards them. Al couldn't decide if his irritation or his gratitude were greater: this was a hell of a time for the general to decide that he was going to start using his key instead of just knocking and waiting to be let in, like he had every time before.

“Oh, hello, General,” said Al, keeping his voice calm and pleasant, as if there weren't a line of discomfort strung between him and his brother, thick and near-tangible. He stood up from the table, knowing that Ed's eyes were following him, and said: “I suppose I should head upstairs and leave you two to it, then. Unless you'd like me to make you some tea?” Al said, almost hopefully. For the first time in a while, Al looked down and noticed the half-full teapot in front of him. “It looks like this pot has gotten cold.”

Roy laughed, the sound freer than it had been since the start of this whole mess – and that was good, really, Al reminded himself.

“Thank you, Alphonse. You're very kind,” he said, happily. Edward looked strung out, half-ready to bolt in the direction of the nearest door. _This must be so frightening for him_ , Al thought, with a pang of hurt and sympathy, his own worries forgotten for the moment. This was the moment of potential rejection for him, the moment where he was most vulnerable – and Al's presence was only going to prolong the response. He had to get out of there, this wasn't his business, wasn't his place – 

But then, without warning, Roy Mustang dramatically swept down on one knee in front of his younger lover, his smirk amused as he folded his hands together on his knee. Ed's eyes widened, and he pulled back, flat against the back of his chair, looking nothing less than dismayed – maybe even terrified – as Roy's expression switched from smug to serious.

“Edward Elric, thank you,” the general said, eyes focused intensely on Edward's, which only seemed to make the younger man's embarrassment more acute. “I know what doing this must have cost you, and you have no idea how much I appreciate what you have done for me. I am honored that you would think so highly of me. You are an incredible human being, the strongest person I have ever met, and I love you.”

This time, Ed fairly _scrambled_ back and away, knocking his wooden kitchen chair over in his haste. Alphonse felt blood rise to his cheeks.

“What the _hell,_ Mustang?!” Ed hissed, spilling his coffee all over himself and everything around him in his mad dash to get away from the general, but he didn't seem to notice or care.. “The fuck do you think you're doing?”

“Confessing my undying love to you, of course,” the general said, expression once again smug and thoroughly amused. “What does it look like I'm doing?”

Alphonse had thought he himself was flushed, but he imagined it was nothing compared to how Ed looked then. He was as red as his signature jacket from his hair all the way down to his chest, wide-eyed and mortified, his coffee cup dangling limply from his metal hand. 

“Undying –” The word came out a croak, half-finished. “The fuck are you down on one knee for? You makin' fun of me?”

“Not even remotely,” Roy said with a warm laugh, getting to his feet again. “No, not a bit. I mean it, Edward,” he said in response to Ed's evident disbelief. The two stood a few feet apart, eyes locked on each other, neither even really noticing that Al was there at all anymore. “I'm honored and touched by your confession and I have no idea what I did to warrant such devotion from you, but I'm grateful for it. And I want to make sure you know that the sentiment is returned.”

Edward remained frozen where he had stopped, his flesh arm still in front of him in a defensive position, ready to spring away at the first sign of trouble. The flush hadn't left him.

_I should probably clean up that coffee,_ Al thought, distantly.

“You're... you're a fuckin' sap, you know that?” Edward said, an embarrassed accusation.

“Maybe,” said Roy, his voice light. “I have been charged with such a crime before, and mostly by you. But it's my enlightened opinion that one of us ought to be at least a _bit_ sappy, and it's certainly not going to be you, so really, I have no choice,” he continued, teasing. It dawned on Al then, with a mixture of surprise and confusion, that once again the two were standing about five feet apart, neither making a move towards the other. They hadn't kissed, or hugged, or touched in any way, although the general, at least, looked like he wanted to very much.

“I told you not to fuckin' make fun of me,” he snapped.

“And I told you that I'm not. Well, maybe I am a little bit,” the older man conceded with a chuckle. “But I'm not making fun of your admission – just of your general nature.”

Behind the surly defensiveness, Al could see his brother collecting himself: the fervent blush had begun to subside.

“...You're weird as shit,” Edward finally said, flashing his lover a quick, pale grin. “You don't get to make fun of _me_ when _your_ first instinct when talking about relationship shit is to get down on one knee. I guess I should be grateful there wasn't a fuckin' bouquet of roses.”

“And I don't believe you have any room to criticize my methods when _your_ first instinct when confessing is to do so as far away from the actual object of your affection as possible,” he said, an eyebrow arched and a smirk painted on.

The color of Edward's face deepened once again, although he didn't seem displeased. If Alphonse could have disappeared straight out of the room without drawing attention to himself, he certainly would have. As it was, although they had said nothing particularly secret, he felt like he was intruding on something really private, intimate in their own – really weird – way.

Mustang continued, smoothly.

“But the radio show was perfect, Edward. You were brilliant.” This time, his brother's embarrassment had a distinct edge of pride. Al could see Ed puffing up before his very eyes. “At first, I was a bit stung that you went behind my back to do this, and I wondered whether you were making the right decision, but actually hearing your interview cured any lingering doubts I may have had. I would just like to tell you how very impressed I am with how you handled yourself on the air today.”

Ed's returned a half-cocked smile, the praise evidently having bolstered his confidence.

“Oh yeah? The hell were you expecting?” 

“Oh, I don't know,” Roy said, warm. “I'm well aware that you can do anything you set your mind to, but often, what you set your mind to is antagonizing and provoking the people around you. It's rare and nice to see you setting your mind to being as charming as I know you can be. If you keep this up, I might just have to start worrying about you taking over my side of this business.”

That seemed to amuse Ed: his shoulders relaxed and he crossed his arms comfortably.

“Nah, not a chance. Don't worry, you've still got plenty of job security. You're ten times smarmier than me, and I'm not half a good at flirting with people as you are. Besides, I'd hate it anyway.”

Roy's raised eyebrow drew up further, and the man let his gaze stroke slowly, meaningfully, up and down Edward's body. Alphonse blushed deeper, startled.

“Is that so? It seems to me that you have quite the natural talent at seduction, as well,” he said. The man's tone wasn't particularly suggestive, but those words in combination with the way he was clearly undressing Ed with his eyes finally motivated Al into getting the hell out of there.

“Oh, um, I'll just make that tea then, shall I?” Al squeaked, then cursed silently as their eyes turned to him, as if once again remembering he was there – he had never wanted to draw attention to himself, but what else was he supposed to do? Just disappear without saying anything? “Or – I could go upstairs. Yeah. That's what I'll do,” he declared, scooting around Roy and into the living room to head for the stairs “You two have fun!” he said, trying to keep his voice steady and cheerful.

Edward turned golden eyes on him, and for a moment, he looked sad again. Then, he looked away, and bent down to pick his chair up by the back and right it, setting all four feet on the floor again.

“Thanks, Al,” he said, softly, still not meeting his brother's eyes. “I'm really sorry. We'll talk later, okay?”

Part of him – the irrational part, the childish part – was really sick of being told that he would be let in on it “later,” was sick of being shown in a million ways that he came second in his brother's life now; his more rational, grown-up side reminded him to shut up because he was being stupid. This was a very special situation: it was the first day his brother ever admitted to being in love. Al was sure it was strange and confusing and wonderful, but probably mostly confusing. The _only_ thing he should be doing right then was being supportive.

“Yeah,” Al replied. “Of course. Later. I'll see you then.” He gave his brother a smile as he turned to go, and hoped his brother understood that he was so, so happy for him.

* 

Alphonse's departure up the stairs left Edward feeling at once relieved and exposed: without his brother to mediate the meeting, the empty space between Ed and Roy became almost deafeningly loud. At the same time, he watched his brother's retreating back with regret, knowing that he was probably sad and lonely and scared and trying so hard to be happy for Ed even through it all.

There had to be some way he could ease all of his little brother's fears, to make him see just how much he meant to Ed.

The realization came as a twist inside of him: god, there was no way he was going to be able to keep from telling Al about that night, and about what had happened after. Then, everything would come clear: he needed Al to know that none of it had anything to do with Ed liking Mustang more than Al (he didn't) or trusting him more (he didn't). It just had to do with – 

He broke that thought off and turned his attention back to Mustang, standing in front of him like a monument: Mustang, who had met his offering with open arms and a smile; Mustang, who apparently, against all odds and despite the fact that he could have anybody he wanted, apparently loved _him,_ Edward Elric. Him, with all of his scars and his stubborn-ass prickliness, with his stupidity and aggression and defensiveness and everything else that had ever driven Roy crazy; somehow, despite everything, Mustang thought he was worth it.

Goddammit, Roy was in love with him. Now he was going to have to start earning it.

“Perv,” Edward finally said, breathily, in response to his lover's compliment or come-on, to the man's appreciative gaze. The man's eyes traced his body so heavily that he could almost feel them on him: his insides grew hot and shivery. Without allowing himself to think twice, he continued. “Can't you even go ten minutes without eye-fucking me?” he said, finding himself mercifully flattered rather than threatened by the attention.

Roy caught the look in his eye, and his intention along with it.

“If you don't want to attract my attention, then don't wear clothes that make you so gloriously appealing,” Roy purred, dark eyes undressing Ed slowly, intense. “A man could hardly help himself.” He didn't make a physical move forward: this was Ed's game, now, and he set the pace. At the tone and the look in the man's eyes, Edward felt a faint stirring between his legs, pleasant and yet also unwelcome, but it was gone again as quickly. The general cocked his head, watching Ed knowingly, smile slanted. “Or was it not my attention you were trying to attract? Was it maybe – Ms. Daniels?”

The pink returned to Ed's cheeks, faintly. 

“Well, I did kinda dress up for her, yeah. I thought –” _No, don't be embarrassed. Own this. You did, not too long ago._ “I thought that she'd like it. And social shit always seems to go over easier for me when I look hot,” he said, forcing on a grin.

Roy laughed, and Edward warmed to the sound.

“I struggle to imagine why,” he replied with a soft amusement, and if Ed were sane, if he were normal, he would go over there and kiss the man, and then they'd fuck and lie there in the afterglow, and forget about all of this.

“But, uh –” continued Edward, “I actually wore this for you.” He gestured down to the crisp button-up shirt in a deep red that Roy had bought him a few months back. The top of the shirt gaped to reveal his neck and upper chest, as he knew the general liked: the older man had often said that the fit and color looked particularly striking on him, and he always said as much with this sharp look in his eyes that curled warmth straight through Ed's stomach. “I know you like the way it looks on me,” the younger man finished.

But upon glancing down at his shirt, to his dismay, he noted for the first time the fact that he had spilled half of his cup of coffee on the bottom right side of the shirt. _Goddammit,_ he thought, as he noticed that the other half of the dark liquid had struck a long, wet mark across the floor. He thought about transmuting it off of the tiles, and out of his shirt – but the memory of his teacher's voice interrupted the thought, declaring that “if you can fix it with your own hands, you should,” and decided against it.

“Aw, shit. Now it's stained,” he grumbled, instinctively moving to unbutton it so he could stick it in some water in the sink so that it wouldn't set in before Al could get to it. His little brother was way better at that kind of of domestic stuff than Ed was.

He stopped mid-motion: he felt Roy's eyes on him without even having to look up, as pointed and searing as a brand. Frozen, his eyes still held down, his own breathing grew heavier, challenged by the weight of the atmosphere.

“See?” Edward said after a moment, unable to hide the faint shaking of his voice. “You can't even go ten minutes without eye-fucking me.” Swallowing dryness, he looked up, meeting the other man's eyes despite his instinctive hesitance, and shivered at what he saw there.

“How could I _not_ stare when you're standing in front of me, looking like _that,_ ” he said, rumbling, “and threatening to undress? I challenge you to find a person who would be unaffected by this,” he said, sounding at least as strained as Edward felt.

Was Mustang really that turned on by what he saw, even though Ed had done so very little? Was that tremor in the man's voice the sound of the man trying to restrain himself?

A rush of feeling hit Ed then – he felt powerful, dangerous, utterly in control of this situation. The tide of nervousness hit him again, churning with echoed memories of hateful words, but he pushed it aside with as much aggressive determination as he could summon. Slowly, forcing himself to stay calm, he began to undo the fourth button from the top, skipping the first three as he had never clasped them shut in the first place.

The room went still, the sound of breathing suddenly absent: Edward became aware that the general was holding his breath, eyes fixed on the younger man's deft fingers. The button slipped through crisp cotton, and Ed slowly, deliberately, pulled the two halves of the shirt apart to lengthen and widen the delta of revealed skin. Dark eyes raked past his chest to the very bottom of the gap, where the absence of protective clothing teased a glimpse of his stomach – Ed heard a hissed exhale.

“Edward,” Roy said, voice rough and gloriously unrestrained. Ed didn't respond: he moved his hands down to the next button and began to repeat the earlier action. “Edward, please,” he said, and Ed looked up, two creases appearing on his forehead, unsure what the other man was asking.

The struggle between will and want showed clearly on the general's face: the sight made the warm, shivery feeling in Ed's loins return, growing in needful intensity. 

“I'm going to ask that you please stop,” Roy said, face and tone taut with effort, “because seeing you like this and not being able to touch you is an absolute torment.”

God, Ed hadn't known it was possible to so fervently want something and want anything but that thing at the same time.

No matter how much his body begged him to allow Roy free access, to let himself lose himself in the pleasure of skin on skin, he knew he couldn't – not yet. The prospect was appealing, but he knew that the physical reality of a warm hand on his body would scare him, sicken him, and he would have to stop, and then everybody would be miserable instead of just horny. More than that, if he let himself make that mistake then god only knew how long it would take him to get to this point again – to be able to stand in front of this other man with confidence, an unresolved desire crackling between them, to be able to want and be wanted despite the lingering fear.

Half-regretful, half-relieved, Ed removed his hands from the button upon which he had been hesitating, then flicked them back up to slide the next button back into place, then the next, leaving himself mostly covered. Roy let out a long breath.

“I'm not sure whether I'm more thankful or disappointed that you did as I asked,” Roy said, wryly, a bit of his frustrated arousal still tinging his voice. Ed's returning laugh was only a bit shaky.

“You and me both,” he said, finally moving to sit down in the chair he had so recently righted. “This is confusing as all hell.”

“I can imagine,” Roy replied, taking Ed's cue and sitting down across the table from the younger man. “But, at least, you seem to be doing better than you were. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course,” he said, sounding nearly normal again.

“Yeah,” Edward agreed, feigning confidence, pushing his mind away from his wants. “You can only let that shit bother you for so long,” he finished. He and Roy both knew that the last part was a lie, but it was a comforting, encouraging lie, so they let it be.

“I'm glad to hear it,” the general replied. “Very glad.” A pause. “What changed?”

“Coupla things, I guess,” Ed replied, working up the courage to actually maybe tell Mustang about some of said things. The man loved him, the younger man reminded himself: maybe he could start to trust that the general wasn't going to leave when he found out how fucked up Ed was – the man already knew how fucked up he was. There wasn't any more shit to find out, really: for some reason, that fact was immensely comforting. His chest heaved outward as he took a deep breath. “Well, I guess the first thing was that I had this really godawful dream last night” – he wouldn't go into any more detail than that unless specifically asked: it wasn't really necessary anyway – “and finally remembered how tiny and insignificant this is when compared to all the other shit I've been through in my life. If I can handle all of that, I can handle this too,” he said, with certainty. 

A roil of his stomach undermined the determination in his words. Even though this one thing really was tiny and insignificant, somehow the memory of that night still bothered him. This fact irritated him more than he knew how to explain, made him angry without cause or focus. The one positive result of the ill feeling was that the arousal that had lingered after the lovers' brief, lightning brush with the intensity of their mutual need entirely deserted him in the face of his nausea. He continued on.

“On that topic, I finally went and got that – thing taken care of last night, too. The cut,” he added, in case Roy hadn't caught his meaning.

The older man nodded, the sadness in his eyes belying his faint smile.

“Good. Untreated wounds can be quite dangerous. I was worried.”

Edward made a face. Right – this was why he avoided talking about these things. He hated the expression the man was wearing, hated the worry and the pity – he just wanted to see Roy smiling, just wanted the man to be that smarmy bastard he had become so fond of somewhere along the line.

He just wanted everything back to normal – but he knew that making it happen wasn't going to be as simple as it sounded. Nothing ever was. 

“Well, don't be worried, you know I hate that shit. I'm fine, it's fine, moving on,” he said, and before his lover could frown at the evasion, he continued. “But, uh, also – I'm glad you didn't, uh reject me an' stuff, after what I said on the radio,” he said, blood once again rising to his cheeks. Roy's eyebrows arched high on his face and his eyes went wide. “So, um, thanks for that,” he said, feeling stupid as soon as he said it.

A half-second of pause – then Roy met the words with a bright, long peal of genuine laughter. Ed bared his teeth, his hackles rising – _I say something like that and the fucker **laughs**?_

“Why the _fuck_ are you laughing?” he snarled, ready to spring up from his seat at the table and stomp away at the slightest provocation. “Did I fuckin' say something funny?”

The laughter stopped immediately, although the smile didn't leave the other man's face.

“I'm sorry, Edward, I didn't mean to upset you. I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing because it's funny how obtuse two human beings can be about each other's feelings – and about their own, if it comes to that. I was laughing because you seem to be under the impression that I could ever deny you anything.”

Roy leaned forward to shorten the distance between them.

“Well, let me set you straight,” he said, serious. “It's absolutely absurd that you feel the need to thank me for loving you. I am astonished that something like that would even occur to you. Every day, I thank any deity that might exist that you still choose to put up with me. The idea that you, as brilliant and amazing as you are, might actually love me seems surreal to the point of fantasy. If anybody gets to thank anybody, then I should be thanking you.”

The scowl Ed wore grew softer, pinked in embarrassment rather than fury.

“That's stupid,” he mumbled. “Why the hell would you thank me?”

“Why indeed,” Roy said, his brief affect of seriousness disappearing in a wave of amusement. “So let's agree to stop being stupid, as you put it, and dispense with the thanks, shall we? If you don't, then I may be forced to compliment you some more.”

“Asshole,” mumbled a properly blushing Edward. “Yeah, whatever,” he said, and Roy smiled.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yay for hot boys and UST! (Finally, sexy-ish material from a series that started as pornfic!)
> 
> I promise, more politics next chapter.
> 
> If you liked, leave me a note! I would really, _really,_ appreciate the encouragement.
> 
> Thanks for your support!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, hi guys! It's been a while, huh. *hides*
> 
> I'm so sorry this has taken so long. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
> 
> Does this mean I will be back on my regular posting schedule of every two weeks? Likely not. Will I be able to produce the next chapter within three weeks? Chances are high, but we'll see.
> 
> Anyway, the amount of love and support I've gotten from you guys during my little break has been truly heart-warming. Thank you for everything. Things in my life are beginning to clear up, and, fingers crossed, they'll stay that way. I hope that a lot of you are still along for the ride!
> 
> So anyway, please enjoy :)
> 
> -Edit 3/31/14 - Also, unrelated good news: I've officially had one of my stories accepted for publication with ManLoveRomance press! It's gay porn (yes, there are publishers out there who publish it, for reals) and I think you guys will enjoy it! It will be quite familiar to you, I think ;) It definitely started as an idea that I had for a RoyEd oneshot, and then transmuted itself from there. I'll let you know when it's officially out for purchase, and when it is, you guys should go get it!
> 
> In other news, I'm going to have an editor. Like, a real editor, who edits things! Things that I wrote! And I signed a contract and shit, like a grown up. And they will be periodically mailing me money. I think I may have a heart attack.
> 
> I'll put this again at the front of the next chapter, for all of those who have already read this one and aren't going to do it again, and who will consequently miss the news.
> 
> \--Edit 4/17/2014-- So clearly I'm not going to have it out by three weeks, but if I really bust my ass today and tomorrow like I did yesterday (hooray for part-time work and three days off), I'll have it out by Sunday (or Monday at the latest). It's still a-comin'! It may be a long time in coming, but it is currently 22,000 words, so at least you've got a lot to look forward to!

**Chapter 11**

*

Not all of the plans that General Weimar had been forging in secret were as provincial and petty as his grudge match against Mustang: no, that was only the first step in something much greater and further-reaching. Less than a month from the date upon which he had set his plan into motion, the list arrived, to his great anticipation. Although he understood that he hadn’t yet exhausted the spectrum of treachery in his country, he also reveled in the knowledge that he was no longer powerless against the forces that waited in the dark, slavering, to tear Amestris to the ground. 

The first time he laid eyes on the list, still in its envelope and clenched in the hand of the sergeant who had brought it to him on that Monday afternoon, he found himself actually trembling with excitement – he barely even remembered to thank the man before dismissing him. He knew what it was before even sliding it out of its manila casing, before locking eyes on the first name he saw there, but the confirmation set his heart beating faster. As soon as the messenger departed, Weimar picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number: in minutes, he had arranged an appointment with the Fuhrer for 4:00.

The hours until the meeting passed with a torturous slowness: his work took on a curiously irritating and impermanent quality in the face of that fluttering anticipation. Every time he tried to get back to his other work, he stayed there for perhaps no more than five minutes before his eyes strayed back to the list. Normally, he didn’t mind his usual administrative nonsense – approving documents, suggesting new training techniques, modifying pay grades for his subordinates – but that day, his mind was elsewhere, on more important things. Today, he would change the world. 

At the very click of the clock that announced half past three, Weimar gave up. He picked up his leather briefcase by its handle, worn dark and glossy from use, put the documents in it, locked it firmly, and strode out of his cramped office, down the hallways, his grip on the case white-knuckled as he followed the familiar path automatically.

In fewer than fifteen minutes, he arrived at the outer office and passed a greeting to the Fuhrer's secretary. She nodded at him in return, and stood to draw the inner door open. As he stepped inside, Weimar could see Fuhrer Hakuro sitting on his blue couch, one knee crossed over the other and a teacup to his lips, the saucer held carefully with his other hand below it. The general saluted – Hakuro returned a casual “At ease,” and Weimar settled himself on the couch opposite to his leader. He did not take the teacup set out in front of him.

“Hello, General Weimar,” the Fuhrer said, mildly. “I’m surprised to see you again today.” He took a long sip of his tea, then set both the cup and saucer back down again. “It's rare for you to request a meeting with me outside of our regular schedule, especially when the council just met this morning. What brings you to my office today? Has something changed in the Aerugan campaign?”

Weimar feigned a look of polite confusion.

“What Aerugan campaign?” he said, still smiling. “I'm sure I don't know what you could be referring to.” The tightness in the Fuhrer's shoulders relaxed as he gave a short chuckle in return. The man had explicitly asked not to be informed about Weimar's attempts to sow dissent along the Aerugan border – he would have been no kind of special forces general if he insisted on just waltzing in and spilling state secrets without permission.

“Ah, my apologies,” Hakuro said with his own smile, the softening in the line of his brows making his relief clear: he had no desire to know about Aerugo in any detail. The important thing with him would be maintaining plausible deniability. The man settled himself against the couch cushions and draping one arm over the back of the furniture. “I must be thinking of something else.” The man glanced down at the briefcase. “I suppose, then, that you must have something to else share with me,” he said, then took another sip of the red-gold liquid in his cup.

Weimar nodded: the latches on his briefcase came undone in half a second under his expert fingers, and he opened it to pull out the paper in question. He pushed it across the coffee table.

“The investigations department has finally finished collecting a report that I commissioned just under a month ago,” he said, as the other man took the papers in hand. “I wanted to bring it to your attention as quickly as possible.”

Both of Hakuro's thick grey eyebrows arched into the air as he glanced over the first page, then turned to the next one.

“A list of citizen criminals?” he asked, giving Weimar a searching look over the top of the report. 

“Enemies of the state,” Weimar responded, unmoved and unmoving. “We have been allowing those Ishballan bastards to infiltrate our cities for too long. It was about a month ago that I realized that they had to be living _somewhere_ – the sewers just aren’t big enough for an infestation of this size. And harboring terrorists is a capital crime,” he added, just to reinforce his point. The Fuhrer, of course, knew his own laws, but the reminder would nudge the conversation further in his favor.

Hakuro sat in silence for another few long moments, continuing to read the contents of the first page, then leafed through a few more, then set the packet down on the couch beside him and laced his fingers together in his lap.

“So, you ordered Investigations to collect information on the citizens who have been giving work or shelter to the Ishballan refugees.” His brow pulled down low at a harsh angle. “Without asking me first,” he added, with tones of accusation.

But Weimar prepared for his meetings impeccably every time, and this one was no different. He had known how the Fuhrer would react, and knew exactly how to reply. 

“Not at that moment, no. I thought that your time could be better used elsewhere until I had something substantial to report,” he said, easily, affecting faint surprise, as if he had never really considered the question before.

The other man replied with a short laugh, amusement creeping in once again, and said:

“So basically, you wanted to be sure you had succeeded before you reported your new initiative to me.” General Weimar just smiled and shrugged, noncommittal. “I suppose that's understandable.” He opened his jacket pocket to pull out a cigar; then, after a moment's pause, he pulled out a second one and offered it to the other man.

Weimar waved it away. Cigars were exclusively indulgences of celebration, for him, and rare. The taste of that smoke on his tongue called back too many memories, traces of nights spent talking under the open sky of the desert as sweet-bitter tobacco fumes swirled around them. Even the scent carried with it echoes of a man who had loved fine cigars and all of life's little indulgences, right up until his very last breath. 

The Fuhrer shrugged and pocketed the roll again for his own later use, then withdrew the cigar clipper. He trimmed the end in one expert motion, then opened his lighter and clicked it until it sputtered into sparks and flame. Once it had steadied, he brought it to the tip of his cigar and held it there, rotating the roll slowly until the paper began to glow bright orange at the edges. As he pulled the lighter away, he puffed in a long breath and held it, and didn't release the fumes until he spoke.

“So then, I take it you're here to ask me for permission to do something about this,” Hakuro said, grey smoke curling from his mouth with each syllable.

“Yes, sir,” Weimar replied, doing his best to keep his mind off of the old, familiar scent.

“And what, exactly, would you like to do?” Hakuro asked; Mikhael straightened his back and locked eyes with the other man, and hoped that his leader could see his fervor, his unwavering patriotism in the set of his face, his shoulders.

“I think, sir, that the time has come to make an example of the few, for the good of the many.”

*

“Al,” Edward called, standing at the bottom of the straight staircase and staring up to the second story, his flesh hand warm against the cool banister. “Hey, Al.” He was very good at not showing his nervousness: he had a lot of experience in the matter. A door creaked tiredly as it opened above him; then, he heard a quiet:

“Yes, brother?”

“You can come back down now,” he said. “Mustang's gone.” He was, indeed. The man had left without so much as laying a finger on Edward, and his gratitude for this consideration almost matched his regret.

“Oh,” said Al, and Ed heard the echo of a few steps on wooden floor before Al appeared at the top of the landing. “How did it go?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

In answer, Edward allowed a grin to spread across his face, relieved and happy because he had _done_ it: he had confessed and Roy hadn't rejected him and he had really helped the man's cause in the process. Regardless, nervousness hung, unassailable, at the edges of his pleasure. There was one great obstacle left to pass.

“It went good,” he said. “Better than I expected. Better than I’d hoped. C'mon downstairs,” he told the other, stepping away from the stair with one foot so the line of his body led to where he was trying to go. He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen, and gave a sidelong glance back to his brother. “We got stuff to talk about an' shit, don't we?” 

Al took the stairs slowly, as if he weren't overeager to hear what Ed had to say. Ed knew his little brother well enough that the act didn’t fool him any.

“We don't have to if you don’t want to, Brother,” the younger said, each word careful: Ed got the impression that Alphonse had rehearsed what he was going to say, which touched Ed immeasurably. “I know that things have been hard for you recently, and I don't mean to put more pressure on you.”

Edward fought down the squirm of his stomach, fought the part of him that said _you should be able to keep this shit to yourself, you sure as fuck shouldn't have to go crying to your little brother to feel better about it (you whore)_

“Nah, don't be stupid, Al,” he said with a laugh. “I said we'd talk, and we will. Or d'you wanna make a liar out of me?”

Al smiled a bit, though the crease of worry between his brows gave him away.

“Just trying to give you a chance to back out,” he said, following his older brother into the living room. Edward turned and sat down on the couch just in time to catch the moment that his little brother's expression flashed with disapproval. 

“What?” Ed asked, frowning. “What'd I do?”

“Oh, Brother,” Al sighed, shaking his head. “You've got a coffee stain on your nice shirt,” he said, sounding both resigned and disappointed, like he knew he shouldn’t have expected anything better. Ed flinched: that was a surprise.

“Oh. Uh – yeah,” he said, glancing down at it. “I spilled earlier, when Mustang showed up and scared the shit out of me by bein' a dumbass.” He most certainly was not blushing at the memory, and he would have denied it under oath if asked.

“...You could have at least transmuted the coffee out before it set in,” Al said, reproachfully. “Here, take it off. I'll go stick it in the sink.”

“Hey, aren't you the one who's always telling me to do less shit with alchemy? The last time I tried to transmute my laundry, you got all mad at me,” Edward said, jokingly, fingers moving up to undo the top button. “Besides, Teacher always said –” 

“Yes, but Teacher also said that if you wanted your things to be beautiful, you shouldn't break them,” Alphonse shot back, before Ed could finish his sentence. “But you do that all the time, so I don't see why you'd care about breaking her other rule.” 

Edward laughed as he finished unbuttoning the shirt, then slid it off and lobbed it at his brother's head. The younger brother had apparently not seen this coming, because the shirt caught on his face, covering up his look of surprise.

“Ah, shut the hell up,” Ed replied, his nervousness evaporating in the face of the easy rapport that they still shared, despite everything that had happened and all of those awkward, silent moments. “Besides, I'm pretty sure you care more than I do.”

Giving a quick laugh, Al pulled the shirt off of his face and balled it up in his arms.

“I don't believe you. You go out of your way to make people stare at you – you know you like it. Well, let me tell you: nobody ogles a guy with coffee stains on his shirt,” Alphonse said, matter-of-factly, which made the heat rise to Ed's cheeks. 

“Really?” Ed replied, arching an eyebrow suggestively over a slight grin. “Funny you say that, 'cause Mustang might beg to differ. He was doin’ just fine.”

Al made a face, nose wrinkling as his tongue shot out.

“Ew, brother. If I've asked you once, I've asked you a thousand times: please don't tell me about your sex life,” he said. But then, without warning, his look of exaggerated disgust changed – grew softer, sadder – as his eyes latched on to Edward's shoulder. More specifically, onto the stitched-up slash on Edward's shoulder. Edward himself shrank as that injury grew, overwhelming him, and he wondered if it was all his brother could see.

“Edward,” he began, slowly. “What's that?”

“What's what?” he responded, guiltily. 

“That cut on your shoulder,” Al said, crossing his arms and holding the cloth to himself. “Where did you get it?”

“Uh,” said Edward, because he hadn't really prepared for this, exactly – he had hoped to be able to start this conversation on his own terms, to come into this dance at the beginning, at a place where he knew the steps. “Um – well,” he said, standing up from his seat on the couch. “How 'bout you do whatever it is you're gonna do with that shirt, and we'll talk?”

Al's eyes searched him, all of the energy of the moment hanging on his silence. After a moment that lasted far too long, he nodded.

“Alright,” he replied, and began to walk towards the kitchen: Edward followed close behind. The younger tossed the shirt into the kitchen sink and turned the tap on. As Al waited for the water to warm up, the blonde hopped up onto the counter, letting his legs dangle over the side. His little brother watched him expectantly, and Edward's heart beat arrhythmically in his chest.

“So, that cut,” the younger continued, tone neutral, picking up a bar of soap and letting it run under the water for a moment before beginning to rub it on the stain. “Spill.”

“Ah, well,” started Ed, just to give himself space to get his thoughts collected. “Well, see, this might've kinda been an injury I never told you about from the other day, when I got attacked.” He paused. “You remember, when I got this,” he said, gesturing to the scabbed-over scrape on his cheek.

“I remember,” said Alphonse. Then, clearly trying to lighten the mood by teasing, he continued, “And I can take it from the clumsy stitch job that you sewed it up yourself?”

“Hey, I think I did a pretty damn good job, considering the fact that I had to do it with my left hand and in the fucking mirror, too,” Ed replied. “I'd like to see you do better.”

“Well I'd like to see you go to the doctor,” Al shot back, taking both hands to the shirt and rubbing it against itself until it put up a violent lather.

“I did!” Edward replied, indignantly: sure, it might have taken a while for him to make it there, and the doctor might not have ever looked at this particular wound, but he definitely had gone. “I just – cleaned it up myself first, so nobody else was gonna have to threaten me with needles.”

Alphonse gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head, then turned off the tap, evidently deciding that the sink was quite full enough

“Don't lie to me, brother. I know you better than that. You never go to the doctor unless somebody basically drags you there by your hair.” Edward winced: he couldn't exactly claim that this wasn't true.

“Uh, yeah, well – Roy kinda made me,” he said, which was almost right.

“...So the General knew about this, too?” Al said, the end of his sentence unspoken, but clear: _he knew, and I didn't?_

“Don't get the wrong idea,” Edward said: the moment of truth was approaching, and he could feel the flutter of his pulse in the hollow of his neck. “It's not what you think.”

“Then what _is_ it? Believe me, I'm listening,” said Al – then, without warning, a knock to the door interrupted them. They both turned to look at the source of the noise.

“I guess I should get that, huh?” said Edward, more than a bit relieved by the moment's reprieve. Al turned his head a bit to give his brother a hint of a smile: he wasn't blind to what Ed was trying to do.

“Nah, I'll get it. You're not decent, after all,” he said, indicating Ed's shirtlessness with a brief wave of his hand. The blonde returned a smile with the same quality, kicking his feet forward so that his heels fell back to hit the cabinet door in turn – one with a dull thud, the other with the harsh clank of metal.

“Mkay,” agreed Edward. Al shook the water off of his hands and, finding nothing else to dry them with, wiped them on the sides of his pants, then slipped over to the living room door and set one eye up against the peephole.

No sooner had he laid his eye against the hole than there was a sudden, visible change in Alphonse's demeanor: his brother stiffened, clenched his body as he stood straighter. Then, he pulled away and put a hand to the knob, pulling it open to reveal exactly who Ed didn't expect.

Three figures in police uniform stood outside: the first was a woman with a square jaw and a long, thin scar that cut down the right side of her face. At half-paces behind her stood two men, one of whom had shoulders like an ox and the other of whom appeared to be fingering a set of handcuffs lovingly.

“Hello, officers,” Alphonse began as the door finished its opening swing. “Chief LaForet. How nice to see you again.” Only very rarely did Ed ever hear his brother being insincere, but when it happened, it was obvious as a signal flare – something was up, and he had a bad feeling about it.

“Alphonse Elric? May we come in?” said the woman in front, her voice like gravel and ice.

“You know, I think that if I said ‘no,’ it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, so I’m not going to bother.” Al's tone turned from sarcastic to sharp in a second. “Can I help you with something?” he asked, in a way that implied that “help” meant anything but.

“You’re right. It really wouldn't make any difference at all,” she snapped back, unimpressed by his sass. “We officially have a warrant for the arrest of one Edward Elric,” she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her uniform pocket and opening it with a flick of her wrist: the warrant in question. The woman's eyes scanned the room, through the living room and into the open kitchen, then fell on Ed. She took a step into their entry, brushing straight past Al as if he hadn't even been there.

Goddammit, Edward thought, mind rushing: _they're here for me?_ With the attack and the subsequent confusion and everything else that had been going on in his brain and in his life recently, he had hardly even given any serious thought to the possibility of his arrest. He scowled, tensing, getting ready to fight if he had to. Why was it that the worst possible damn thing that could happen to him almost always did? It wasn't fair: if there was a god, he was an asshole, and he had a fucking _vendetta._

But his bitter irritation didn't stop the gears in his mind from spinning, careening through a thousand possibilities and ideas and thoughts at once. Of course, an arrest only made sense: it was equivalent exchange for his attack on the reporter. _But why,_ Ed thought, with perhaps a touch of bitterness, _does equivalent exchange so often mean punishment?_ It struck him as odd, not to mention irritating: the whole point of alchemy was to exchange one thing for another thing that you _wanted._ In all the other parts of life, that didn't seem to hold so true.

“Are you Edward Elric?” the woman asked him – Chief LaForet, Ed guessed, based on his brother's greeting.

“Who wants to know?” Edward drawled in reply, settling himself further onto the countertop, affecting relaxation. The line of her shoulders seemed to grow tighter.

“I am Chief Inspector LaForet of the Central City Police, and you are under arrest for assault and battery. I'm going to need you to accompany me to the police station now.”

“Hey, hey, hey – hold up there, chief,” he said, putting up both hands as if to tell her to slow down. “I never did answer you. You gonna go making arrests before you know for sure that I'm this Edward Elric guy? What happens if I'm not?”

The woman didn't seem impressed by Ed's sass, either – which was a shame, because he was really quite good at it. She just frowned at him even more fiercely.

“You have blonde hair and an automail arm, and are in the home Edward Elric shares with his brother. It would be pretty reasonable to assume that you are he.”

The grin Edward flashed the woman struck her off-guard: he could tell by the brief wash of confusion on her face.

“Wow, you're just a logical mastermind, aint'cha? Well, good job. Yeah, I’m Ed Elric. You caught me,” he said, sliding off of his seat and to his feet fluidly. “Now, whatcha gonna do with me?”

“I have already asked you to accompany me to the police station, where you will await your trial in jail, unless you can post the bail that the judge orders for your case.”

Ed crossed the room to stand in front of her: she might have been taller than him, but by no means did she have more presence. Her eyes flickered down to his bare chest, then up again: the sight seemed to disturb or annoy her for some reason. Ed saw, noted, considered – he set his background mental processes to work on the problem.

“So, you’re arresting me,” he finally said when locked himself into place, body squared, less than a foot away from her. “Are all arrests in Central so wimpy, or just yours?” he asked, baring fangs in a grin. “If you're gonna arrest a guy, at least fuckin cuff the guy up: don’t roll out the red goddamn carpet.”

The expression on her face turned dark, and Ed's grin only widened. Al gave a long, put-upon sigh. He was really making Al sigh a lot recently.

“Really, Brother? Are you going to do this?” he asked, resignation in his tone.

“Yeah, I really am. But don't you worry about a thing. I got this,” he said, never unlocking his stare from the chief inspector's. Everyone seemed to shrink back the closer he got: he wondered if his state of undress had something to do with that. Suddenly, wonderfully, everything fell into place, and he had an idea.

“On account of your many services to the state, I was going to treat you well,” she snapped, scowl deepening, “but if you insist on being treated like a common criminal, I can do that for you, as well.” The woman really would have been pretty formidable, to a normal person, but Ed had faced down so much worse. They stared each other down for eight long seconds, after which the discomfort apparently became too much for her to bear. “Go put a goddamn shirt on,” she finally growled, and that made Edward feel deeply vindicated, because he fucking loved being right.

“What, really? You're here to pick up a suspected criminal, and you're just gonna let him hop off like that? Seems like a pretty stupid thing to do from my end,” Edward said, his voice and the slant of his head giving off an aura of mocking disapproval. “Do I really need to tell you guys how to do your jobs? What are they teaching kids in police academy these days, anyway?”

The muscles in the woman's jaw bulged beneath her scar as she clenched her teeth.

“Alphonse Elric,” said LaForet, without turning her unblinking stare away from Ed, “Please go upstairs and collect a shirt for your brother.”

“Yeah, Al,” Edward said, intercepting the request. “Help a guy out and go get me one of my black tank tops? Thanks a million.” Al gave him a suspicious look: he wasn't sure what, exactly, his older brother was trying to accomplish, and even though it clearly made him uneasy, he didn't ask. Instead, he just nodded some kind of agreement and turned to go upstairs and retrieve the article of clothing in question.

As soon as Al was gone, LaForet went for the handcuffs on her waist.

“Now, Mr. Elric, put your hands together in front of you,” she ordered him, a daggerlike glint in her eye – but rather than putting him off, it really just made him want to bait her more. The kind of discomfort he could elicit in her was thrilling, dizzying, because the very fact that she was afraid of him meant he was _powerful._ He had learned, with Roy, just what an effect his body could have, when used properly: now, he wielded it to different effect.

“Already? But how will I put my shirt on when I'm all cuffed up?” he asked, with an innocence so overplayed it was suggestive. “I’m pretty sure you want me to do that. What would everybody at headquarters think about you if they saw you dragging me into headquarters, half-naked and in handcuffs? Everybody in Central knows I’m into that shit – it’s been all over the papers. Maybe they’d think you like it, too.” A pause. “Or maybe you do. Maybe that’s what you’re doing, right now,” he said, equal parts sultry and sarcastic. This time, she took two abrupt steps back and away from him, as if she was afraid he could contaminate her with his lasciviousness just by physical proximity. He could have laughed at the sight if it wouldn't have ruined the game he was playing.

It was actually kind of a funny turnabout: for once, Edward Elric was a making woman uncomfortable with his sexual advances rather than the other way around.

“I would shut my mouth, if I were you,” she said, visibly unnerved – possibly even disgusted? – but trying her best to keep it schooled under a mask of calm. “Edward Elric, you are under arrest, by the authority of the Central City police. You can make this as easy or as hard for yourself as you want, and I won't hesitate to treat you appropriately either way. Are we clear?” she said, squaring her shoulders and trying to regain her earlier composure.

“Crystal,” Edward drawled, carelessly.

A voice from the stairs interrupted their conversation:

“I can't believe you're arresting him,” Alphonse said, and when Ed looked over, he saw his brother stalking across the room, the requested shirt clenched in his left hand. Upon arriving, the younger man shoved the garment at Edward, then rounded on Chief Inspector LaForet. “You're... you're a horrible human being,” he said, sounding both surprised and offended by this. “I thought we talked about this already. I thought you had decided to leave him alone.”

Edward's eyebrows shot up in the air – when had Al been talking to the police about him? Clearly his little brother had been up to more in the past several days than Ed had given him credit for – and Ed wasn't the only one who was keeping his hand close to his chest. He made a mental note to ask about it later.

“Did you? Well, she's clearly not a very good listener, is she, Al?” said Edward, sticking his arms up in the air to shimmy into his tank top, and not minding at all how all three of the police officers stared at him as he did it. Then, he stuck his hands out, wrists together, offering them to her along with a sharp grin of victory. “Alright then, Chief Inspector, ma'am. Clap me in irons. Haul me away.”

He almost had to laugh: she now looked so thoroughly uncomfortable with the idea of putting him in handcuffs that for a moment she seemed unsure if she even wanted to anymore. Clearly, though, she wasn't the kind of person who would allow herself to back down in front of her subordinates, so she wasn't about to change her mind, but that was alright by him. Without so much as another word, she stepped forward and clicked handcuffs around his wrists quickly, professionally. Edward suppressed a shiver at the contact of foreign skin on his own, at the feeling of metal around his wrists – though the sensation was familiar, everything else was foreign, discomfiting.

“Brother, do you want me to come to the police station with you?” Al asked, warily, never taking his eyes off of the woman. With his hunched shoulders and wide stance, he gave off the impression of an angry cat with its ears laid flat and its hair standing on end. The younger brother knew his brother was cooking something up as sure as he knew it was Tuesday: that didn’t mean he was terribly happy about it, though. His worry showed through every instant of aggression.

“Nah. I got this,” said Edward, exuding good cheer that was almost entirely genuine. “Just let Roy know what's up. And don't let the bastard pay my bail,” he added. The man would try, but though that was nice of him, it would be inconvenient for a number of reasons.

Alphonse kept frowning, but seemed resigned in the face of his brother's determination.

“Alright, if that's what you want,” he said, slowly, as if considering all angles. As LaForet stepped away, Al tossed away all reserve and threw himself forward to wrap his arms around his brother. “Be good, brother,” he said, quietly, into Ed's shoulder.

It just figured – one of the few times Al would think to hug his brother, Ed was all fucked up in the head, and in handcuffs to boot. He reciprocated as best as he could, by giving a fond smile.. Really, his little brother's protective streak made him feel warm and happy and all kinds of other nice things, too, almost enough to stop him from flinching away from the unexpected touch.

“Aren't I always?” Edward said, flashing Al a grin as the younger pulled back.

Al returned the expression in kind, matched in intensity.

“No,” he said, his pride fierce and laid bare in his eyes. “You're not.”

“Nope,” said Ed, happily. “I'll give 'em hell for you, Al.”

“You do that, brother. I'll be right here, supporting you from the outside,” he said, and tapped his brother's shoulder with a closed fist, in an echo of days gone by. Edward flashed a brilliant smile: with his brother by his side, there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

*

That evening, after pulling himself from his shower, Roy found himself – distressingly – without anything in particular to do. Absently rubbing at his hair with the towel draped around his shoulders, he wandered his library aimlessly, every so often letting his fingers drift across the cool leather spine of one particularly familiar book or another as he tried to divine his next step.

It wasn't that there were no things to be done, it was simply that he could not at that moment be the one to do them. He was entirely too recognizable and therefore an enormous liability when it came to investigative work: he didn't need Harriet or Weimar or anybody else wondering just what, exactly, he was doing looking up old newspaper articles or court records or anything like that.

He plucked a book off the shelf and flipped it open, frowning at the page he found within, eyes scanning over it without really registering any of its content. 

Everybody was risking so much for him, and he couldn't even help at all. He snapped the book shut again and stalked over to stand in front of his window.

There had to be _something_ he could do, a next step he could take prior to meetings and interviews he had planned for the next day. Anything at all would do. After all, Edward was putting everything on the line for him. The least he could do would be to match that effort.

 _He loves me,_ he thought, stunned once again by the realization. _He really –_

He cut that thought off at the root: he had to stop this, to get out of his own head and _focus._ Dwelling on the intricacies of his personal life wasn’t about to get him anywhere. He had to keep his eyes up, keep them ahead, keep himself moving forward: he had to, if he wanted be worthy of all this love and devotion.

The ring of the telephone sliced through his train of thought: he walked over to it and picked it up automatically, without even really thinking about it.

“Hello, Mustang here,” he said, moving over to the armchair next to the receiver and leaning back in it.

“Hello, General,” said a familiar voice from the other end of the line. “I'm glad I caught you. I didn’t know if you’d be here or not.” 

_Where else would I be?_ he thought, wryly. _It's not as if I have anything else in particular to do._

“Hello, Alphonse,” Roy replied. “I'm rather surprised to hear from you, actually. So, to what do I owe the pleasure? Are you calling to threaten me with death or violent dismemberment if my relationship with your brother shouldn't go as planned?”

Al chuckled.

“No, no. I was actually calling with some news,” he said. “Couple of things I thought you might like to know. Is this line secure?”

“How secure?” Roy asked, frowning. “Normally I'd say yes, as I had the line checked out about four days ago, but given everything that's been going on...” He let his sentence drift off meaningfully. “Well, four days is a long time,” he said, neutrally.

From the other end of the line came a noise of acknowledgment.

“Understood.” He paused. “Well, then, I won't go into too much detail. I just wanted to let you know that I've found some financial evidence linking the people we've been looking into,” Al said, eliciting a rise of pride and gratitude in Roy. “There's still a lot of footwork to do to verify the source of the questionable income, but I should have more information soon.”

“Thank you, Alphonse,” Roy said, genuinely grateful. “You have no idea how much I appreciate what you do for me.”

“Oh, um, it's nothing,” said Al, as if he were embarrassed by the praise. “And anyway, I'll have more to report the next time we see each other in person. I haven't gotten this new stuff to your investigations team yet, either, but I will tomorrow.”

 _That's right, he was ostensibly working with military intelligence on this stuff._ Another thought came to him: _You know, he and my mother would really be a terrifying team._

He broke into a smile: he was going to have to introduce the two of them, and he had a Plan for how he was going to do it.

“But that's not all I called about,” Al said, interrupting the general’s daydream. “I also wanted to tell you that Brother's just been taken away to jail,” he said, and the smile on Roy’s face dropped immediately, icing over in the pit of his stomach. The general sat there with the phone to his ear for a moment, unmoving.

“What?” he finally said, to give his struggling brain more time to process this new information.

“He told me to tell you not to worry about it,” he said, moving right along to the next topic as if the news needed no further explanation. He sounded eminently unconcerned. Roy wasn’t sure if this was genuine, or if the younger man was trying to put him at ease. “And also that you're not allowed to pay his bail.”

Roy frowned. Not _worry?_ How could he not worry? How was Alphonse not worried out of his head?

“You'll forgive me for not taking his instructions to heart,” Roy said, keeping his voice calm. “Might I ask what he's in for, specifically?”

If the general was very lucky, this would be about his assault on Guy Harriet, and not something new. He didn't know how he would handle anything new arising at this hour.

“Just assault and battery, nothing you don't know about already. I understand why you'd be concerned – really, I do. I was worried at first, too. But this is the thing: you should have seen him before the officers took him away. He seemed... better than he has been. He was acting like his old self again, or almost. I mean, he was acting _weird,_ but only the kind of weird that he normally is. That's why I'm not down there banging on doors and making a fuss.”

“You're not?” he said, surprise evident in the tone of his voice.

“No,” Al replied, with a soft laugh. “I'm not. You know why? Because I think that Brother has a plan. Given his status and the situation, the officers were basically just going to walk him into the station without much of a fuss, but he started antagonizing them, and actually made them angry enough that they put him in handcuffs. It wasn’t just like he was just mouthing off and getting himself in trouble, like he usually does – it was really deliberate. He actually seemed kind of happy about the whole thing.”

The flicker of yellow street lights interrupted the darkness that coated the street outside of Mustang's window in imperfect rhythm, and he watched it distantly, mind working. The city nights had begun to cool: in the faint halo of the lamps, he could see wisps of fog beginning their slow creep across the pavement.

“Why on earth would he be happy about being arrested?”

“Well, I have a theory,” said Alphonse. “I've been thinking about it. I haven't had very long to consider it, so don't judge me if it's silly, but I think he's happy to be put in jail because he really doesn't deserve to be.”

Roy responded with a baffled silence.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a moment. “Clearly I’m not on top of my game politically speaking today, because I’m having a lot of trouble with understanding this one. Care to enlighten me?”

“I know it sounds weird, but if you think about it, it actually makes sense. Brother went on the radio show yesterday because he thought it would drum up some sympathy for him, and therefore for you, right? I think he went to jail for more or less the same reason a lot of people are probably going to be very upset that he's been locked up, especially after the interview yesterday. He could be a martyr for you, if you handle this right.”

A wave of gratitude followed that statement, along with a certain amount of jealousy. Goddammit, was there anything that Edward wasn’t a genius at? He was the most brilliant person at so many things, and now he was good at politics, too? But that thought evaporated swiftly under the other waves of emotion that caught him then. Roy sighed and leaned back in his chair, his relief manifesting itself in half a tired smile. 

“I see. And I can't pay his bail, because if I did, then I'd be the corrupt government official using my power and influence to get my lover out of trouble.” Though really, Edward didn't need any help to get out of jail – what cell could hold the Fullmetal Alchemist if he really wanted to escape? 

_Al’s probably right, mostly,_ Roy mused, trying to put many disparate pieces together in his head, _but I wonder if the arrest isn't even something of a relief for Edward._ A cell could serve two functions – it could keep someone in, yes, but it could also keep the rest of the world out. 

“Exactly,” replied Alphonse. The voice in which he spoke was light, unburdened: Roy’s heart sank as he realized that that probably wouldn’t be true for long. If he still sounded so cheerful, Edward probably hadn’t talked to him yet. “So the best thing you can do, I think, is to bring the arrest up on the radio show. Your interview's tomorrow, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good. Good.” A pause. “Well, I guess that's all I had to say, really. I just wanted to tell you about this myself before you heard about it from somebody else and went to make some police officers into crispy kebabs.”

“I appreciate that very much.”

“It's not a problem. It’s the very least I could do, actually. So, good luck with your interview tomorrow!” he said, brightly. “Actually, one more thing: congratulations on yours and my brother's dumbass confessions. You deserve each other,” he said, and the general was entirely unsure whether this was a compliment or not.

“I'm not sure if I should be flattered or insulted,” Roy said: Alphonse answered with a laugh, which didn't help.

“Oh, good,” he replied. When he continued, his tone was utterly different, sharp and steel-coated and utterly terrifying.

“But seriously, if I ever find out you've hurt my brother, I will skin you for a jacket. 'Kay?” he added, brightly, and hung up the phone without another word, leaving Roy to shiver coldly in the safety of his own home.

*

It took until several hours after sunset for Weimar to collect everyone and everything that he needed. He didn't mind the lateness of the hour, at least not much: he had no desire to end his operation early and head home, because he knew who would be waiting for him in his bed.

He hadn't spoken to Meredith properly since their fight the night before. He couldn't decide if he was more irritated or distressed: she couldn't see how ridiculous she was being, and nothing he was saying to her was really making any difference. Had she any right to judge him when she didn't have the _faintest_ idea what being in politics was like, of the kind of deeds such a vocation necessitated?

 _And how could she compare **me** to Mustang?_ he thought, listening to the screech and scrape of tires on pavement as the car struggled to a halt. _What did I do to deserve her scorn?_ Such thoughts had been distracting him all day: but why did the memory of her expression that night, cast in the firelight, bother him so much? He knew that she would come around over time. She always did. He had only to wait.

The young military police officer who had been driving him parked the car and turned it off, then stepped out of the vehicle to circle around it and open Weimar's door for him. As the general stepped out, he gave a nod of thanks, and the MP saluted, rigid: all around him, other men and women filed out of their own cars to stand in the small square he had chosen as their rallying point. When they were done, there were fifteen of them, arranged five to a row with their eyes focused ahead, guns held flat across their chests and angled up, awaiting his orders.

All thoughts of Meredith and his own troubles disappeared as Weimar took on the affect of his office: he stopped at the front of the column, standing with his feet spread apart, his back to their target and his hands folded behind him. He looked imperious, commanding, every inch the leader – and his men would follow him anywhere.

“Soldiers,” he began, never increasing his volume, but rather the clipped intensity of his speech. “Search the house. There are five family members: two adults and an infant, plus two older children. In addition, there should be two – guests,” he said, sardonic. “Find them all, then detain them in the living room for questioning. I will decide what to do from there. If any of them resist, you have permission to shoot. Understood?” 

His team echoed back a “Yes, sir!” and never took their eyes away from the front.

“Excellent. Then proceed,” he said, and stood his ground as the soldiers started forward in a single file line starting with the leftmost column. He turned to watch the leader as the man stopped in front of the door and knocked: there was a long, awkward quiet before the MP had to knock again. In a moment, though, they heard the faint click of an unlocking door, pulling open to reveal a man with a dark grey mustache on the other side.

Weimar was close enough to see the man's eyes widen as he took in the sight before him: he took a staggered step backwards.

“Military police,” the lieutenant at the front of the line said. “Open up.”

“I don't understand,” the man in front of them replied. “Why are you here?”

“We have reason to believe that you and your family have been engaging in criminal activity. We have a search warrant for your house and two more for your arrest and your wife's.”

Shock registered immediately on the man’s face: he began to sweat, his pulse pounding visibly in his throat.

“But– what did we do?” the man said, taking another step backward. As he did, the line of MPs streamed in around him: in his surprise, he reached out to catch one of the soldiers by her sleeve to stop her from going in. She took the butt of her rifle and gave his hand a ringing smack: he jerked it away and clutched it to himself. She continued on, jogging behind Benedict to the stairs, the rest of the soldiers following behind her.

Weimar took this opportunity to interject, striding forward and through the door. The man's eyes locked on him, a mixture of fear and barely suppressed anger evident in every line of his face.

“What are you accused of, you ask? Well, harboring terrorists, Mr. Benedict,” he said, pleasantly, his smile even less genuine. “And we really have quite compelling evidence, too. What do you have to say for yourself?” The lieutenant stayed in front of Weimar, gun pointed directly at Benedict's chest. The general did not lift a finger of his own.

“Harboring – what? I don't –” He swallowed and collected himself, his mustache quivering. “We haven't done anything wrong,” he said, watching the backs of the soldiers as they stomped up the stairs or streamed into the living room on their left and the kitchen on their right. The stomp of heavy military boots echoed through the house.

“John?” came a high, woman's voice from the back of the house. “John, what's all the fuss?”

“Mary,” he called back, twisting his body to turn his head over his shoulder. “Everything's fine. Go get the kids and stay with them, okay?” he said, in a transparent attempt to get the MPs to feel sorry for him and relent. A futile effort: Weimar had trained these soldiers himself, and they were better than that.

“Or perhaps it would be best to just stay here and cooperate,” Weimar said. “I don't want you escaping and managing to warn your little rats before we get to them.”

The general nodded to another MP who had come to stand behind him: the man took off immediately in the direction of Mary Benedict’s voice. He came back moments later with a woman in front of him, a gun pressed to the small of her back.

Weimar took a folded sheet of paper from inside his coat pocket and spread it out in front of him.

“We hereby accuse,” he read, silkily, “John and Mary Benedict of the crime of treason, for the harboring, sheltering, and illegal employment of two Ishballan terrorists.”

The faint sound of children's crying reached them from above, and the man began to quiver in earnest.

“But – you _can’t,_ ” Benedict said, as if he expected his dismay to have some effect. “Is this about our renters? Yes, we rented our spare room out to two of our Ishballan employees, but that's not illegal. No one ever made a law saying I couldn't rent to whoever I liked.”

“By law,” Weimar began, delicately, “Ishballans are supposed to stay in the camps.” He motioned to the lieutenant, who took the signal and ushered their captives into the living room at gunpoint. “So yes it is, in fact, illegal.”

“That's what they say,” the woman cut in, “but no-one actually –”

“The law is the law, Mrs. Benedict,” Weimar said. “And Ishballan terrorists are a danger to the state. By harboring them, you have been facilitating their evil plots.”

The woman's lips went thin and tight, and she rounded on him.

“You have it all wrong! Tashi and Aman aren't like that. They're good men.”

The way she looked at him, eyes tight at the corners and shoulders squared as if she couldn't decide whether to cry or to hit him, disgusted him. She had been completely taken in by their lies – they both had been. If he hadn’t been so angry that they had put others in danger by allowing themselves to be fooled, he might have felt sorry for them.

Then, there was more commotion from upstairs: this time, Mikhael heard the raised voice of what sounded like a grown man, then running footsteps. Weimar bared his teeth in a smile: that would be one of the rats. His own conversation stilled as the two civilians went rigid before him, straining to make out what was being said.

“No! Don't _touch_ them, they didn't _do_ anything –” 

“Hands above your head, Ishballan!”

“Alright, I'll do it, just let the kids go –” 

“Don't touch me, scum!”

And then, there was the loud crack of a gunshot – then, a brief, frozen silence of the kind that only comes as the aftershock of horror. A child’s soft wail followed, pitching moment by moment up into a genuine scream, followed in seconds by another – piercing, shocked, cutting, but quickly muffled, as if by soldiers’ hands.

Mary Benedict heaved a dry sob, and when Weimar turned back to the pair, he found her hands clenched by her sides, unspilled tears threatening in her eyes. Rage carved lines of rage in her husband’s face: he wrapped an arm around her.

Weimar was careful to keep the smile he wore pleasant, distant, professional.

“That was an interesting development,” he said, as if commenting on the weather. Then, more pointedly, he said: “Might we be more willing to cooperate, now?”

*

Alphonse did not call the police station: he knew that would do no good, or less than no good. Instead, he waited, a nervous flutter in his throat, to hear the ring of the telephone. The moment he did, he yanked it from its receiver, almost dropping it in his excitement.

“Hey, Al,” came Edward's voice, the moment Alphonse put the receiver to his ear: he sighed, sagging under the relief of hearing his brother alive and well. Logically, he knew that his brother was in safe hands with the Central City police – he was too important and too famous to be really treated awfully – but that knowledge hadn't alleviated his worry.

“Hey, Brother,” Al replied. “How are you? How's jail?”

“Eh, I've seen better,” Edward said. “Little cramped, I guess, but nothin' special.” Al laughed – his brother had been inside of enough jail cells that he could certainly make a good comparison. “They're only letting me have one call today, so I figured I'd ring you up, let you know I'm alright. You wanna do the same for Roy, for me?”

“Oh, way ahead of you,” said Alphonse. “I called him pretty much as soon as you got taken away – told him not to go paying your bail or burning down the police headquarters or anything. I told him you had a plan.” He paused to think, and in thinking became unsure. “...You do have a plan, right?” he asked, hesitant.

“'Course I do,” Ed declared, overly cheerful in a way that made Al nervous. Historically, that kind of good mood from Ed meant there was some kind of trouble on the horizon – well, either that or that he was hiding something. He hoped that it was the former. His brother knew what he was doing most of the time. Ed continued. “D'you really think I'd go and get myself tossed in here without one?”

“Well,” began Alphonse, meaningfully, teasingly. “It's definitely happened before, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.”

“Ah, shut up,” said Ed. “Nobody ever jails you ‘cause you’ve got the face of a baby panda, but that doesn’t mean you get to judge _me_ for it,” he continued, and that made Al laugh. “Anyway, I'd tell you more about it, but there are three guards within earshot, got me?” he said, and despite the lack of detail his meaning was perfectly clear. He didn’t want to be caught out in whatever he was doing.

“Of course,” the younger replied. 

When Ed continued again, his voice was quieter.

“But honestly, I'm kinda glad to be in here anyway,” he said, and Al's shoulders tensed, because the way the other said it made him nervous.

“Why?” Al asked, lines growing between his brows.

“Well,” Ed began, and Al imagined him shifting uncomfortably where he stood, head and shoulders slouched forward. “There's something I kinda need you to see.” In the silence that followed, Al waited for an explanation. “It has to do with what we were talking about earlier, before we got interrupted. With why I've been acting so weird.”

A spike of adrenaline, like fear or excitement or maybe both, ran through him, prickling in his stomach.

“What is it?”

“There's a packet of papers in my desk drawer, the one on the far right. It’s a report. I want you to go get it and read it,” he said, his voice sounding suddenly hesitant and uncomfortable.

“Why? What's in it?” Al asked, as the fear turned to foreboding.

“Um... You should probably just read it. part of the reason I'm glad I'm in here is so I don't actually have to tell you about it myself.” Half of Al felt a bit stung to hear that, but the other half really did understand.

“I see.” He thought for a moment. “So that's the first thing I'll do. But after that, can I come visit you in jail, or would that go against your plans and stuff?”

“Can't see why you couldn't,” Edward said, and Al knew what forced cheer sounded like in his brother's voice. “But definitely read the stuff I told you about first. You're gonna want to. Then you can come up and we'll talk about everything. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” Al said, trying to keep his tone confident enough to override the hint of his brother's fear. He didn't know what there was to be afraid of, exactly, but he fully intended to find out. “I guess I'll let you go, then, to go antagonize the guard or do whatever it is you do. And don't get yourself into so much trouble that you can't get out of it again,” he finished: his brother responded with a snort.

“Al, there ain't no trouble I could get myself into that I couldn't get out of again,” he said. “Don't worry 'bout me, I've got this handled.”

“I'm sure you do,” Al replied, amused. A few more meaningless words passed between them before they said their goodbyes and hung up. He stood there in silence for a moment, the crease between his eyebrows making itself carving itself in deeper with every passing moment.

 _What could possibly be in the report that would bother Ed so much?_ Al thought, turning from the kitchen counter towards the stairs. Maybe it was another news article that Al hadn't seen, or maybe one that hadn't even been published yet. It was probably full of information that Ed didn't want getting out to the public, in any case. Al frowned deeper – that didn't seem right, though. No, it couldn't be: his brother had acted _angry_ about those news articles, not like – _this._ It had to be something else.

He hesitated briefly upon reaching Edward's door, his hand hovering above the doorknob for only a few seconds before he pushed past his discomfort and went in.

He found the report easily enough, although he was certainly glad that he had been given such specific instructions, because Edward's workspace was a disaster zone: the surface of his desk labored under the weight of a dozen books and perhaps fifty sheaves of paper, some covered in Edward's handwritten mess of notes, others with the uneven letters of a typewriter, lined up to make pamphlets or reports or research papers or any one of the million other things that Edward apparently felt the need to keep on hand at all times.

But just as advertised, in the right hand drawer, directly on top of everything else sat a packet, creased as if it had recently been folded into quarters and then flattened out again. It was not well cared for – it looked crinkled, as if it had been carried in a jacket pocket. On the front, plain, unadorned type read:

 _Investigative report: September 14, 1918._ The next line read, _Second Lieutenant Lilian Astor_ – that was interesting: he remembered that woman from the investigations department. He had never done any work with her, but she had seemed a nice sort. What was a report by her doing in Ed's desk drawer?

He reached for it, smoothing it out from force of habit before picking it up and sitting down on his brother's desk chair. Pulling back the cover page, he began to read.

Twenty seconds apiece was all the time Al spent on the first three pages: he got the gist, then moved on to the next, the crevice of his frown deepening as he tried to understand what was happening and why it mattered. 

The final page didn't hit him like a immediately, but soaked over him like an icy tide: first the sinking feeling – realization – then the shock, the horror. Then, slowly, rage spread like a fire, consuming all it touched.

He was on his feet without knowing how he got there, hot blood pumping through his wrists, his neck, making his hands shake, his breathing quicken: but his vision cleared, sharpened, and he locked his mind forward.

Now, finally, he understood. It had taken him too long – and his brother had suffered in the meantime, and he was so, _so_ sorry. But he could apologize later: for now, his purpose burned bright in his mind..

Maybe forgiveness was harder than vengeance. Maybe it was the mark of a great man – but maybe Alphonse wasn't a great man, because as he read the words on the page again, and looked inside of himself, he found that he had no mercy to spare.

*

The darkness that night is of the kind that could eat you alive, if you let it. Perhaps the cold blackness itself will swallow you, alive and screaming – or perhaps it is the shadow of the monster that one fears when one looks at the dark. Alphonse Elric walks through it as if he were born to it, forgetting fear, forgetting compassion. If there is a monster in the dark, then it is him.

Past midnight, wordless – for what words are there to speak? – Al slides the door to this stranger's room shut behind him. A small transmutation, easy as breathing, bolts the door again behind him, leaving him alone with his purpose: the world around him is silent but for the sound of blood pounding through his ears.

The man sleeps on his plain bed, his shape carved out by the faint glow of the moon through the drapes. The steady rise and fall of his chest is untroubled, and Alphonse swallows a hot burst of rage upon seeing him sleeping there, so peacefully.

_He won't be for long._

Though the light has all the force of a candle, Al recognizes the face: the small eyes, the long, thin nose, the red-brown hair cropped to boot camp length. He will remember that face until the day he dies, he knows, because how could he forget a thing that is etched onto his brother's mind so deeply?

The fury that sears back through him is startling, unfamiliar: he wants to _hurt_ the man, hear him _scream,_ make him feel even half of what his brother felt – 

_You can't you can't you can't –_

He bites his lip and tastes copper, the tang bright and grounding. It reminds him who he is, _what_ he is. The man is defenseless, and Al is better than him.

He sets himself to his purpose and steadies his breathing: he pulls a chair over from the table across the room and sets it down beside the bed, then sits down on it, legs and arms crossed, the sharpness of his vision focused on the man's sleeping form.

Alphonse Elric is swathed in shadows, his eyes glittering bright through the dark.

“Gregory Asel,” he finally says, and his voice cuts like a sword into the man's peace: the stranger wakes, sweat beading on his brow as he shoots up in his bed, his face twisting into a labyrinth of anger and fear and confusion.

“Who the _hell_ are you?” the man finally manages to get out. “What the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?” The fear streams down his temple, his cheek, dripping off to spatter on his shoulder.

“I'm here to pass judgment on you,” Alphonse says. On another day, in another situation, perhaps he wouldn't have had any right to judge another – he is hardly perfect, after all – but this day, he does. He swallows down the bile in his throat, keeps his muscles still.

“What? Who the fuck do you think you are?” the man says, angry and trembly and wide-eyed and Alphonse wonders what manner of sins the man has tucked away in some back corner of his mind. “What gives you the right?”

“My answer to both of your questions is the same. I'm Alphonse Elric.” Each syllable rings, clear, through the air. “The younger brother of one Edward Elric.” Those last words are heavy, final.

The man's eyes are blank: they stare at him, uncomprehending, as he tries to put the pieces together, and his very confusion makes Al erupt in a fury; he finds himself on his feet, his fists clenched to weapons, not nearly so dangerous as the steel in his voice.

“Edward Elric,” Al repeats, expression darkening further. “Doesn't the name ring any bells for you?”

“Get the fuck out of my room,” the man spits, and there is no look of recognition on his face. “Or I'm going to make you, and you aren't gonna like it.”

Alphonse Elric laughs, his own eyes wide and wild, hand clenched tight around his weapon.

“Oh, I think you have seriously misjudged the situation,” Al says, advancing on the other man. “Edward Elric. You had better remember that name, or this is not going to go well for you.”

The man's hands are creeping to the edge of the bed now – probably towards a gun, but that's fine – and maybe Al finally understands his brother's addiction to danger, because he finds to his surprise that he _wants_ the man to draw his weapon, wants to have one single excuse to let go of himself. One is all he needs.

“Still nothing?” 

A gun is in Asel's hands, aimed for Alphonse's head: Al loses no time in sweeping it away with an expert kick, leaving it to hit the wall and clatter to the ground as he surges forward and pins the man to his bed, knee pressed into the soft spot beneath the man's ribs and hand clenching his throat closed.

“Edward Elric, the former Fullmetal Alchemist. The man you and three of your friends tried to rape a few days ago.” The man's eyes widen and he begins to struggle, but Al shoves his weight through his knee into that soft spot, and the man coughs out what remains of his breath. “No, don’t try that. You're not going anywhere. I'm not done yet. He's the one who broke your nose,” he says, smiling sharp and bare-fanged. “Remember him now?”

Sweat slickens the skin under his fingers. The man reaches up to push Alphonse up off of him, eyes locked wide on his gun where it lies on the floor, as if to see a way to get to it easily. His struggles get him nowhere, because Alphonse simply lets Asel up and flips him around so that he hits his bed face-first, twisting his arm up behind him. The muffled moan from the mattress tells Al that he must have hit his broken nose on the way down.

“You are _very_ lucky that my brother is such a good person,” he hisses, “or else he would have _killed_ you for what you did to him. And that General Mustang believes so fervently in the rule of law, or else I know you would have burned – and I've heard that fire isn't a pleasant way to go,” he says, his vindictiveness surprising even him. The man writhes and eventually manages to get his head facing the side, where he can talk to his attacker properly.

“Look, I dunno what you've heard, but it wasn't like that,” Asel says, finally summoning the wherewithal to get out a proper response. “Fullmetal was drunk as hell and asking for it –” 

Alphonse cannot suppress the fury that makes him strike a blow to the man's broken nose. His fist comes away smeared with blood. 

“You fucking _monster,_ ” he growls, Asel’s pained moan serving as backdrop. “One more word out of your goddamn mouth and I swear you'll regret it. I wonder if you're just telling me that to save your pathetic cowardly life, or if you've really tricked yourself into believing your own lies so that you can go on about your existence pretending you're a human being? Pretending you have a soul?”

“Oh god,” the man says, both plea and prayer, rivulets of blood trickling down his cheek to stain the bedspread. He has realized his mistake. “Please. Please, have mercy.”

He almost goes to hit the man again, but holds himself back. This person in this room – full of this searing rage, this hate, this violence – isn't him.

_Vengeance is a poison, and all the more dangerous because it's so sweet._

“Mercy is more than you deserve,” he says, and painful swimming of his eyes surprises him as much as anything has. “More than you deserve,” he repeats, quieter, voice shaking. One hot tear hits his hand; it cuts a pale, wet streak through the red of the drying blood.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still reading this thing, I would be immeasurably grateful if you would let me know! If you liked it, even better! Your comments are the fuel on my fire.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 6/19/14: So after nearly two months of absence, I'm sure you're wondering where I am. Well, I'm not dead, this fic isn't dead, and the new one should be coming soon -- within the next couple of days, I hope! I've been in the editing process of it for about three weeks now. But with all of this extra time, I've actually been working ahead on the story, which is something that I honestly haven't been doing since I started publishing this thing last September, or whenever it was. As for why I haven't posted an explanation before now? I didn't set myself a deadline for the next chapter, so I didn't feel like I had any date by which I had to let you guys know about the next chapter. The longer I went without saying anything, the worse I felt about it, and the less I wanted to go do it. 
> 
> I'm really sorry about all of this delay. Just know that behind the scenes, I'm actually working hard. I just made the decision that you guys would probably rather have a good chapter than a bad one, even if the bad one came faster!
> 
> \--
> 
> Hi guys! Sorry for the delay. I hope that the fact that this chapter is nearly 23,000 words will help make up for that for you. I wrote for a genuine nine-to-five day today (with a thirty minute nap break) to make sure that you didn't have to wait any longer than you already have.
> 
> A couple of things, here, about the FMA world as I interpret it. 1) Cenz are roughly equal to yen in value. 2) There are no bugs (covert recording equipment) in this world. In real life, the first bugs weren't used until 1946, and they didn't become commonplace until the Cold War. Also, you see in canon that microphones are about the size of a grapefruit, and wireless technology didn't exist yet (radio did, but radio transmitters were at least the size of a backpack). _You_ try hiding that stuff in somebody's office.
> 
> Also, excitingly, I finally have notes for this monster! And an outline and stuff I spent DAYS making it all. At something like 130,000 words, I was finally like, dammit, I can't keep this exclusively in my head anymore. Good news: that should make the rest of the process go faster!
> 
> But even MORE excitingly, I have some awesome news! I got published! By a publishing company and stuff! That's part of why this is a bit late -- I spent a lot of time doing edits and things with a real editor. Anyway, I think you guys will like it -- it will be, ahem, quite familiar. I had an idea for a RoyEd oneshot, and then was like, wait. What if I could do this with original characters? Could I get it published? And the answer, ladies and gentlemen, is YES. It's porny, it's sweet, and it's being put out by ManLoveRomance Press (Yes, that's a thing, they publish gay porn pretty much exclusively) in e-book format, probably sometime in May. I get cover art and everything! I'll let you know when it's out, but in the meantime, you should totally check them out. If you find you miss the days when I wrote porn, you now know where to find it! 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for your support! I'm still chugging along on this thing. Here's to another eight chapters! (Oh god.) Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 12 

* 

The sun had risen crisp and clean over the angular shapes of the Central City skyline that morning: it stretched the shadows long and dark, then thinned them as it slowly began to drench the city in white light. The air smelled good, too – musky, like it did before a heavy rain, although the sky betrayed no hint of cloud. 

Despite the way recent events made chaos of his thoughts, Roy was determined to appreciate the beauty of the day – the way the quality of the light played havoc with the colors of the city, the way the life surrounding him seemed ethereal in the early-morning quiet that everyone seemed reluctant to break, the way the sharp edges made it feel more real, more present than ever. Even this great display of urban beauty did little to quell the foreboding that churned in his gut, though. All of the beautiful mornings in the world couldn't make him forget that Edward was on the fast-track to spending years in prison, and that it was, in the end, his fault. 

Yes, of course he knew that Edward had some kind of plan to get himself out: he always did. Still, that didn’t really assuage his worry as much as he wanted it to. All plans aside, this time, the young firecracker had quite honestly done something illegal. He couldn’t help but worry that Edward would have to actually be sentenced to a prison term before the public would sit up and take notice, and by then, it would be too late. Perhaps it would help Roy at _his_ trial, but by no means did he want his freedom to come at the expense of Edward’s. 

What was he going to have to do to keep the younger man out of prison? Something illegal? He sincerely hoped not. He didn’t want to be the kind of man who would bend laws for his own convenience... and yet -- 

He turned his thoughts over in his mind, his internal focus dulling his appreciation of the crisp morning. What would he do if Edward were convicted and imprisoned? Would he have to turn to less than upstanding methods to get him out? Would he have to compromise his integrity? 

His arrival at military HQ took him by surprise: he thought he had at least another fifteen minutes left in his morning commute. Apparently, he had simply been so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed the passage of time around him. The minute he walked through those front doors, he had to be on his game: he took a deep breath and buried his troubled thoughts as best as he could manage. 

Strictly speaking, he knew that he probably didn't have to be at work on time that day, or even at all – he had no power and no official duties at that juncture: his outbox was as empty as his inbox, and his official planner was as blank as the day it had been printed. He had nothing to get started on upon arrival -- and yet, he still didn’t want to be late. Late because he had slept in, yes; late because he had stopped to flirt with a pretty face, certainly. But being late just because he felt helpless, like he had no purpose, felt like defeat. So, when Mustang strode through the hallways up to the front doors of his office, deliberately curling the corner of his mouth into a little smirk, the clocks lining the hallway walls hadn't yet struck eight forty-five. He had to keep up appearances, both for the sake of those beneath him and for his own sake. He had no intention of letting anyone see that this had gotten to him. 

“Good morning, loyal subordinates,” he declared, filled with a mad enthusiasm as he slammed the door open to announce his presence: it swung away to reveal Breda and Fuery at opposite sides of a desk, each with a fan of playing cards clenched in their fists. Breda was slouched out, cool and confident, leaning his chair back on two legs; Fuery hunched over his hand, holding it tightly to his chest as if he could improve his chances of winning by jealously guarding his secrets. Both heads whipped around to face the intruder; upon seeing him in the doorway, they scrambled to hid the evidence of their game. 

“Oh, uh, good mornin', sir,” Breda managed, and even from this distance Roy's eyes were good enough to notice his hand of cards disappearing suspiciously up his sleeve. As a strategist, of course it made sense that Breda could make excellent use of his sleeve-space while playing poker – sometimes, in life, there was no point in playing the game if you didn't have a stacked deck, after all. Regardless, Roy made a mental note never to play cards with the man again. 

“Yes, sir, good morning!” Fuery echoed, on his feet. “Sorry – we were just – uh – we didn't expect you to be in this early!” 

“Of course I'm in early. So much to do, so little time,” he said, a manic glint in his eye. “And no need to look so guilty: the day doesn't officially begin for another fifteen minutes! Although if you're not hard at work by then, it will be an entirely different story. Also, Fuery, I think it's only fair to inform you that he's probably been cheating the whole time.” 

“What?” said both men simultaneously. Breda added a vehement “Have not!” afterwards, with the pink face of a man who had been caught out in a lie. Fuery gave him a wide-eyed, accusatory look. 

A chuckle from the side of the room startled the general; he snapped his head to the side to find that he hadn’t yet noted the last companion. Alphonse Elric watched the scene from atop one of the desks that lined the wall of the room at intervals, legs crossed atop it and elbows propped up on his knees. His fingers, laced together, supported his chin in turn. 

“Actually, I'm pretty sure he hasn't been cheating by palming cards, at least, General,” Alphonse Elric said, sitting up straight and uncrossing his legs to stretch out to his full length, then hopping to the ground. “I've been watching for it. From this distance, I guess I wouldn't have been able to see if he had been marking cards or anything, but he’s clean on the first count.” 

“Wow, Al. Really not sure if you're actually on my side or not,” Breda muttered, shaking his head. 

“Hello, Alphonse. Quite a surprise to see you at this hour,” Roy replied, ignoring Breda's comment and turning properly around to the younger Elric brother. Despite the topic of their conversation, Al wore a serious look that concerned him. The general smiled at the other man, but wondered why he was here: he should have been in his lab, tending to the project that he and his brother had put so much thought and energy into over the past six months. A twinge of sadness caught him as he wondered if their work had been entirely forgotten amidst the chaos that had swallowed them both. “May I ask how you became an expert in identifying the gambler's cop?” he said, using the more lyrical name for that particular cheat technique. “No offense meant in the least, but I would have guessed that you would be the overly-trusting type in games of skill and chance.” 

This seemed to amuse the younger man, at least faintly. 

“Oh, I was once – but you can only be cheated so many times before your partners start to lose their rosy glow. My brother is a chronic cheater at cards,” Al said, giving Roy a smile: but a shadow flickered at its edges, and Roy's own expression faltered upon seeing it. “Now, take my advice: if you play stuff with _him,_ make sure he doesn't have any sleeves he can hide things in.” 

Roy frowned properly for just a brief moment – _Edward cheats at cards? Cheats regularly at cards?_ This little bit of info explained _so many_ evenings in Roy's living room. Prior to beginning his relationship with Edward Elric, he had considered himself quite good at poker, but the young man’s virtuosic play had forced the general to reevaluate both his own abilities and his opinion of Edward’s ability to read people. It actually made a lot more sense that he was cheating, now that he thought about it – Edward was painfully competitive and in certain ways quite unscrupulous. At least, his scruples didn’t necessarily always line up with everybody else’s. The only part of this that was really shocking was that he was good enough at it that Roy hadn't noticed. 

This realization forced a laugh out of the older man. 

“Is that so?” he asked, and he would have warmed to think of it if it hadn't been for that inexplicable lookin Alphonse's eye, that seriousness that he had noticed earlier and had failed to either place or ignore. Foreboding crept up in him, and he decided not to put off talking about it any longer. “I'll have to keep that in mind next time I play him. So what brings _you_ here so early in the morning?” 

“I came to talk to you,” Al said, a serious look in his normally-soft brown eyes as he locked them straight onto Roy's. “Can we?” he asked, gesturing in the direction of Roy's personal office, his inner sanctum. 

“Certainly,” Roy replied, serious, before turning back to his subordinates with a pleasant smile that did nothing whatsoever to conceal the pointed look in his eye. “And as for you two: when I come back out here again, I expect to see you hard at work, an inspiration to all of your coworkers. If I find your performance unsatisfactory, I may be forced to request that Colonel Armstrong come here give a motivational speech, to get you all back properly on track with his manly dedication and fervor. Am I being quite clear enough?” 

“Yessir,” they both said, looking terrified. Roy felt a distinct satisfaction as beads of sweat broke out on Breda's forehead. 

“Excellent, I thought so. Now get to it,” he said, and they sprang into action: the general's smile turned satisfied, but as he glanced back over to Alphonse, it fell once again. He walked to his door and stepped through, swinging it open and sweeping his hand inward in invitation. The younger man followed him in, and Roy shut the door behind them. 

“That's quite the threat, General,” Alphonse said, with a nervous sort of laugh. “They were just playing cards. Are you sure they deserved that?” 

“Sometimes, keeping order in unusual situations calls for extreme measures,” Mustang replied, his smile enigmatic, one eyebrow arched. He paused, gesturing to indicate that Al should sit down on one of the two couches that sat perpendicular to the general’s work desk. The younger man did, settling gingerly down on the cushions, his knees pressed together and his back straight. Almost as soon as he did, his hands laced together on his thighs, and his thumbs began to twiddle absently. 

The boy looked nervous – painfully nervous. A thought occurred to the general: he took a few steps back and opened the door slightly again before popping his head out. 

“Oh, Fuery,” he said: Fuery jumped to attention, like a dog caught digging up the garden, although as far as Roy noted the man didn't seem to be doing anything wrong. “Before you get down to work, bring us a teapot full of hot water, a strainer, and that canister of almond-rose tea from my cupboard. And two teacups,” he added. “The bluebird patterns, if you would.” Alphonse had in the past expressed a preference for those particular cups, and he always seemed to like making tea when someone was upset – his own reassuring ritual, it seemed to center him, give him something else to focus on. Perhaps it would help calm him now. Roy received a high-pitched “Yes, sir!” in reply to his order: he thanked the man, then shut the door again and crossed the room to sit on the couch opposite to Alphonse without further ado. 

There was a brief paused, filled with the quiet rustle of cloth on cloth, as Alphonse fidgeted, the crease on his brow lengthening, and Roy made himself comfortable. 

“So,” Roy began with half a smile, in hopes that a return to an innocent topic could break the tension, “does your brother really cheat at cards?” 

This line of questioning seemed to surprise Alphonse, and he sounded terribly young as he replied: 

“Oh, yes. All the time. Like you wouldn't believe.” A pause. “You mean you never noticed?” 

Roy shook his head: he might have been more embarrassed about this fact if it didn't seem to be in some way pleasing to the younger man. A faint smile ghosted across Al's lips, faint enough that the general could easily have missed it, if he hadn't been looking closely. 

“No, I never did notice,” Roy replied, “although the fact that I hardly ever win even a hand against him makes much more sense now. He must be quite good.” 

Al nodded. 

“Yeah. He'd have to be, by this point: he's gotten a lot of practice. I honestly think that the game was just too simple for him – too much chance, not enough skill. So he made it a game-within-a-game: he tries to cheat and get away with it, and incidentally we also play poker.” 

Roy chuckled, crossing his legs and leaning into the cushions, one arm comfortably on the armrest and the other over the back of the couch. 

“I'm fairly certain that in poker, the game-within-a-game usually tests one’s ability to bluff and stay cool under pressure, not to cheat.” 

“That’s true. But for four years, just about his only partner for cards was me, and I was pretty much the worst bluffer ever,” Alphonse said, his obvious amusement dulling the self-deprecation of that sentence. “I made it too easy.” 

“But you were a suit of armor,” Roy said, an eyebrow floating in silent question. “You didn't have proper facial expressions.” Al laughed. 

“Yes, I know,” he said, a pink tint to his now very human face. Mustang laughed, noting that the tension in Alphonse’s shoulders seemed to have decreased some. 

Before the younger man could say anything else, Mustang continued on. 

“So, I believe you had something you wanted to discuss with me,” he said, as casually as he could. “What can I do for you?” 

So much for all of the work he had done to relax the younger man: Al went immediately tense again, his knuckles whitening, bloodless, against his knees. 

“Oh,” he said, as if trying to gather his thoughts. “Oh. Yes. That.” A pause, eyes flickering from side to side. The feeling of dread in Roy's gut returned. “I – um, well, I wanted to talk to you for a couple of reasons. But first things first, I guess.” A deep breath. “I read – I read the report,” he said, and the way he did so left no room whatsoever to mistake his meaning. 

It was at that moment – at precisely the most awkward moment – that the door opened with a squeak, startling them both. Confused for a moment, he watched Fuery enter, and realized what he was doing when he saw the tea-tray balanced precariously on his forearm. 

Fuery's eyes flicked back between them uncomfortably: he was quite clear on the fact that he had interrupted something important. 

“Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt anything. You told me to bring you tea,” he said, by way of explanation. 

Roy took his arm off of the back of his couch and uncrossed his legs, placing his left hand in his lap. 

“I did. Just leave it here,” Roy said: the second lieutenant did so, almost tripping over the edge of the carpet in his fumbling enthusiasm to get the tray down and get out quickly. Mustang thanked the other man as he left, and was grateful when the door had shut behind him. 

Al lost no time in opening the canister and beginning to scoop tea leaves into the strainer with a spoon. As he did so, Roy heard a faint metallic rattle: _his hands are shaking_ , he thought, his chest clenching with a sudden pain. 

“I see,” Roy murmured. “So you and Edward spoke?” 

“Not really,” Al responded, voice quiet, as he finished filling the strainer and placed it inside the teapot, watching the leaves float and then sink down, slowly. “I mean, he told me where to find the report, but he didn't tell me what was in it, or anything else. He still hasn't actually talked to me about it at all.” 

The general let out a long breath. Of course, that was more or less to be expected. Edward wasn't about to wake up one morning and suddenly be good at communicating: any progress he made would be slow and hard-earned. In truth, the general was proud of his younger lover for managing to put all of his reservations and issues aside to talk to Alphonse at all. 

“How long have you known?” Al asked. 

“Less than two days,” Roy said. “I found out Sunday afternoon.” They sat in the quiet for a moment, watching the liquid in the teapot begin to color faintly. 

“It's horrible,” Al finally said, and when he did there was a quaver in his voice. “I guess I knew that things like that happened, but I never thought – I mean, he was the _Fullmetal Alchemist,_ you know? He's the least vulnerable person I've ever met. He's my _brother._ How could that happen to _him_ , of all people?” he asked, and when he finally looked up at Roy, he had a desperation in his eyes – like he wanted an answer to his question more than anything else in the world. 

Roy wished he had one to give, for everyone’s sakes. But he was only human, after all, and the answers to some questions would forever elude him. 

“I don't know,” he said, leaning forward to prop his elbows up on his knees, clasping his hands together between them. “I wish I did.” 

There was another silence. Once he had determined, through some arcane procedure that Roy didn’t understand, that the tea had steeped for an appropriate length of time, Al took the strainer out of the teapot and placed it into a little cup designed for that purpose. He put the lid back on the teapot, then clasped his hands around it – one through the handle, one around the spout – and stayed there, as if frozen. 

“I hurt the men who did it,” he said at last, his words little more than whispers, eyes locked down. “I couldn't stop myself. I _wanted_ to do it.” His voice held a fierceness that seemed equal parts fury and distress, that dared Roy to tell him that he shouldn't have done so even as he asked for reassurance. His shoulders began to shake in earnest as he continued. “I had him helpless and begging, and I still hurt him.” 

A pang struck Roy as he saw just how much this had affected the younger man: shadows cut across his face, and his small hands quivered on the soft porcelain. Moving slowly so as not to startle the younger man, Roy leaned over the coffee table and pried Al's hands gently from the teapot, taking it from him and pouring some of the warm liquid into each cup. Startled, for the moment, back to the waking world, he gave a murmur of thanks before taking the saucer in one hand and the teacup in the other. He lifted it, seemed to think better of it, then perched it on his knees. 

“I understand. I wanted to do the same thing,” Roy said, clasping his own cup in hand. First things first: before they could deal with this further, Alphonse needed some kind of support, some show of solidarity. The general’s voice grew harsher as the truth of his words emerged. “I wanted to burn them until they screamed. Some part of me may always feel guilty about the fact that I didn't punish them myself,” he said, all needles and ice. Rage surged in him again, and he didn't much care to fight it. “What did you do to them?” he asked, darkly, all of his intentions and desires at cross-purposes with one another. 

The lines at the corners of Al's eyes deepened. 

“I didn't – uh, you know,” he said, and in the words and vague gesture of his hand Roy heard _didn't kill them_ , heard _didn't maim them, like I wanted to._ “I stopped before it got too far.” A telling pause. “When I was done – talking to them, I tied them up and left them in their rooms, so they couldn't run away or go get help or anything.” A deep breath, steadying: the younger man took a long drink of his tea, then set his cup down again with a faint clink. “I was going to go drop the report off with the military police, so they could toss the bastards behind bars, but I haven't yet.” 

Roy made a thoughtful noise, and spooned some sugar out of its crystal bowl into his cup, stirring it until it was gone. 

“Why not?” he asked, although he could make a good guess. 

“I just – don't know what to do,” he said, and when Roy looked up again from the sugar, Al's eyes were bright, like he was on the edge of tears. “If they got arrested, they’d be put on trial, and Ed would have to testify. Some lawyer would have to ask him questions about it in front of a jury and probably a courtroom full of newspaper and radio people. Everybody in the world would know.” A shuddering breath. “What if he doesn't _want_ anybody to know? I mean, he couldn't even talk to _me_ about it – having to dig up every little detail for total strangers would be _horrible_ for him.” Another pause. “What if he just wants to forget about it, to pretend it never happened and move on? How can I keep it private without letting those awful men just get _away_ with it?” 

There was so much hurt in that voice, so much anger and pain and probably guilt, and Roy could do so little – but anything he could do, he would. 

Unannounced, the realization struck him that he was the first person Al came to when he had a problem with Ed that he didn't know how to handle. The world was a strange, backwards place sometimes. 

“I don't know,” he replied. “I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you, except that you did the right thing by stopping when you did.” He took another sip of his tea: Al followed suit. His thoughts ran in the space between words. “You should go visit Ed at the police station and ask him what he wants you to do.” 

Al nodded. 

“I guess that’s what I was planning to do.” A long sigh. “I just -- dealing with Brother can be so confusing sometimes. I don’t even know if he'd tell me what he actually wants, or if he'd just tell me what he thinks I want to hear.” He hesitated before this next sentence, but he looked Roy in the eyes as he said: “Maybe you should do it.” 

_What?_ The general frowned in confusion. The request made no sense in his head. 

“I don't understand. Why?” 

The twist to Al's lips and the little shrug of his shoulders meant something, but Roy didn't yet know what. 

“Well, Brother doesn't tell me things. Maybe he'd tell you. He just... seems to be better at talking to you,” he said, the edge in the last word faint but unmistakable. 

“Better at talking... to me?” Roy asked, fighting down his urge to give a shocked laugh: he knew Alphonse wouldn't appreciate it. Still, the instinct was there -- to hear those worse coming out of Alphonse’s mouth was just so unbelievable. He raised both eyebrows instead. “I'm sorry, I'm still confused. You must be referring to some other brother, because the man I'm in a relationship with is good at talking to _nobody_ about his problems.” 

And once again, Al's eyes were wet with unshed tears, and Roy didn't know what he had said wrong. 

“But – I used to know _everything_ about him,” the younger burst out, the words coming loud and strained, pitching higher with every syllable. “I used to know everything that happened to him, what he wanted, what he thought – we used to be close. Really close,” he said, his voice finally softening again. 

Roy blinked, absolutely taken aback: his mind ran over the words again and again, but he still couldn't make anything sensible out of them. _What?_

“And you're... not close, now?” 

Al didn't answer, just watched him with his great wide eyes, shining and round as coins. He looked almost – accusatory. 

Then, like a key turning in a lock, his thoughts clicked into place in his head, and he could see everything clearly. 

_Alphonse Elric is jealous of me for my relationship with his brother._

It was the most absurd thing Mustang had ever heard. 

“You're jealous,” he said, slowly, as the revelation finished dawning on him. “Of me.” 

Al flushed in an immediate wave, like he hadn't been expecting Roy to pick up on it so quickly, like he was ashamed of it. 

“I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I really don't mean to be,” he said, words tumbling out and over each other. “I know it's stupid. It's just – you _do_ know everything that happens in his life. He keeps everything from me – to protect me, I'm sure, because he cares about me, but – it's like he doesn't trust me to be able to handle it.” 

_Or because he doesn't want you to have to._

Now that he thought about it, Al had been acting a bit off for the several days: he just hadn’t paid any particular attention to it because Edward’s behavior had been so much more disturbing. Alphonse’s change in behavior had barely even registered. 

“Is that what's been bothering you lately?” the general asked. The younger man finished the sweet liquid in his teacup and poured himself some more. 

“Partly, yes,” Al said, stirring more sugar into his tea. “Brother has just been acting so strange lately and I had no idea why, and he wouldn't tell me, and _you_ knew why, and it seemed important _–_ and it is.” He paused to take his cup up to his lips and blow on the hot liquid: steam trailed off in curls, disappearing into the air. “So I was worried about him, and I guess mad at him a little bit for letting me worry and not telling me what was happening, and mad a little bit at you for being the person Ed would go to about this. But I guess,” he said, stirring his tea again with the tiny sugar-spoon, “it makes sense, now, why he wouldn't want me to know about it.” 

_The person Ed would go to about this? God, don’t I wish._

It quickly became apparent that Al wasn't going to say anything else just yet. It was Roy's turn. 

“Alphonse,” Roy said, delicately, leaning forward to impart further seriousness onto what he was about to say. “You seem to be laboring under some fundamental misunderstandings of the situation. Let me set you straight: Edward did not 'come to me' with anything – rather the opposite, if I'm to be honest. The only person who came to me with anything at all was _you._ Youwere the one whotold me that Ed hadn't come home on Friday night, then told me that he seemed to have been in some sort of fight, and that something seemed to be wrong with him. I initiated an investigation from there. I found out about the details from the same report you did, not from Edward himself.” 

Al frowned at that, confusion knit in the lines of his face. 

“What?” 

“Major Hawkeye gave me the report. She convinced me not to kill anyone, too,” he said, with perhaps a twinge of bitterness. Alphonse might think he was jealous of Roy – but how could he be? Al had been able to go after those men, and if he was discreet and played his cards right, the consequences wouldn't be dire. He had a kind of freedom that Roy never would again. “But your brother nearly had a panic attack when I brought it up to him. I honestly thought he was going to leave and never come back.” 

A pause. Al watched him, mouth slightly parted, as if he had wanted to say something but had frozen there before he could manage. Roy took a breath: time for some uncomfortable truths. 

“Look, Alphonse. The person your brother cares about most in the world is you. The person he trusts the most in the world is _you_. He would happily give up anything for you, up to and including his own life. If he had to pick one of us, it would be you, without question,” he said, because he knew it to be true. “There is no reason in the world for you to be jealous of me,” he finished, with a little laugh, then finished the tea in his cup. 

Alphonse stared, his brown eyes betraying the cascade of thoughts beneath. 

“I'm sorry,” he finally said, quiet _,_ like he was apologizing or pitying or something: whatever it was, it had to stop. It would do neither of them any good. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It's quite alright,” Roy said, with a smile. “I don’t mind. Really. Your brother's incredible dedication to the people that he cares about is one of the things I love about him.” The word came out casually; he gave no hint of how strange it was to let it pass his lips. “There's no reason to be sorry.” 

Al spent a moment thinking about that, then nodded. Either he believed the General, or he had decided not to pursue it any further for the moment. 

“I see,” he said. “Thank you.” Then, he hesitated, but eventually continued. “So… As best as you can tell, is Brother okay? Is he going to be okay?” 

“You may be able to answer that better than I. The last time I spoke to him was yesterday evening, after the interview. But you saw him after that. You mentioned that he seemed to be acting more like his usual self during the arrest.” 

Al nodded, but the look on his face remained miserable. 

“I guess he did. But what if it was all just more lying to make me stop worrying?”  
  
Roy shrugged. 

“I suppose that’s a possibility, but I doubt it. For all that he tries, your brother's never actually been terribly good at hiding his emotions. Some bit of it always slips through,” he said, with a fond smile. “I trust that you are an excellent interpreter of your brother’s emotional state. You know him better than anyone. And I refuse to let you respond to that statement with anything but, 'Yes, of course I do,'” he said with a small laugh. 

Al seemed to think about this for a moment, then took a deep breath and straightened, gaining several inches in the process. 

“I guess… that’s the only thing I can do,” he said. “Talk to him, and trust him to tell me the truth.” 

“I believe so,” Roy replied. “After all, a lot of the hard part for him is probably over. He’s told you about it. You know what happened. As long as you treat him with understanding – and I have no doubt whatsoever that you will – it can only get better from here.” 

“Thank you,” the younger man finally said, ending the thickness of the long silence. “I appreciate your advice.” He paused, seeming to gather up his courage. “I – you don’t think it was wrong of me to attack those men?” 

“I suppose I hesitate to say that it was _right,_ ” Roy said, keeping his voice casual, conversational. “But I also can’t say that it was wrong. Like most things in life, it falls somewhere into that moral grey area.” A pause: then, more quietly: “They deserved it. I promise you that.” 

Al’s face twisted into blind rage upon thinking of them, but in mere moments it fell away, leaving that same ragged exhaustion behind. 

“Yes,” he finally said. “They did.” There was no anger in his voice in that moment. He sat up straight again, then turned to look at Mustang. “Really, thank you.” 

“Nothing to thank me for,” Roy replied. There was a quiet: he could hear the muffled strains of birdsong through his office window. “Now, how are you feeling? Better?” 

Al nodded, and tried out a smile. 

“I think so. It helped just to be able to talk about all of this.” 

“Good,” Roy said. He rose from his couch and folded his hands behind his back as he walked towards his window. “I”m glad you don’t have to be miserable on such a beautiful day.” 

“Me too,” Al agreed. Roy heard the other stand up, then walk forward: a rustle of cloth as he sat down on something else. A glance over Roy’s shoulder showed him that the man had perched on the edge of his desk. Apparently he had been picking up some bad habits from his brother. “But there was actually another reason I came to talk to you today. I have some information you might find useful,” he said, and Roy turned around to face the younger Elric properly. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone last night in case the line was tapped, but you should probably know: I’ve finally found some stuff tying Harriet and Weimar together.” 

Feeling expanded in his chest, like helium in a balloon. 

“Really,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice calm and measured, altogether controlled. “That was fast. I’m impressed.” 

“Oh, thank you,” Alphonse said, sounding a bit surprised by the compliment. “It was nothing. I just talked to a banker friend of mine and asked him to get some information on their finances, to look for any suspicious withdrawals or deposits. He found both, luckily – somewhere around a million cenz got withdrawn from Weimar’s bank account shortly prior to this whole mess starting, in several batches of about 300,000 apiece.” 

Roy made a thoughtful noise, then said: 

“That is a rather unusually large amount of money to withdraw all at once, yes, but certainly not beyond the pale. There are quite a few things he could be doing with a million cenz in cash that are perfectly legal.” 

“Yes, of course,” Alphonse agreed. “So that wouldn’t be proof of anything, except for the fact that roughly the same amount has been slowly creeping into Harriet’s bank account. It’s been in small packages, and the official bank records state that the money came from various local businesses and newspapers. I plan to go visit the companies in question and ask them a little bit about their association with Harriet – if they even know about the money that Harriet’s allegedly been getting ‘from them.’ I bet you they don’t, and Weimar’s been using their names to cover up his… donations.” Most of Al’s earlier distress and uncertainty seemed to have evaporated, replaced by pride and the joy of his discoveries. “So I don’t know for sure, and I don’t have anything yet that I could use in court, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.” 

The general’s first thought was that even in the middle of his own, personal and family crisis, he still found the time and energy to give of himself for the sake of others. The Elric brothers were alike in that way. His second was that he needed to get this information to his mother: he really should just introduce Alphonse and Madame Christmas to each other as soon as possible. They would be a terrifying force when combined, he suspected. 

“Agreed. I can’t thank you enough,” Roy said, giving the younger man a smile. “You’ve done some amazing work.” 

“It’s not a problem at all,” Al said, flushing a little bit, pleased at the compliment. “I enjoy it. Well, sort of,” he added, but quietly, like he was embarrassed. Before Roy had a chance to comment on it, Al had hurried on. “Oh, and one more thing – I know I told Major Hawkeye that Harriet had been involved in a case several years ago, where he had been publishing lies about the supposed Drachman heritage of a military officer. I provided her with the files in question. Did you ever read up on it?” 

Roy nodded: he knew the situations Al had been researching abundantly well. Much of the information in the briefcase he had provided to Madame Christmas had been from the reports the young man had been collecting. The general had certainly taken the time to familiarize himself with all relevant information thoroughly before passing it on. 

“Yes. I’ve had something of an abundance of free time lately, shall we say,” Roy said, keeping it light despite the discomfiting implications. “I’ve been through all of the information you have provided and more.” 

Alphonse nodded, his lips curled tightly downward. 

“I see,” he said. “Well, in any case I had something else I wanted to add. Harriet was formally accused of libel in the court system over that case: I found the records in the court library. According to the documents, he was mysteriously acquitted shortly thereafter. No trial, no explanation, no nothing.” The smile that crossed his lips was small and bitter. “Whether he’s got definite connections to Weimar or not, he’s certainly got friends in high places, huh?” 

God, that boy was a miracle. Without such a loyal and competent team, Roy would have been sunk in the mire of Amestrian politics long ago. 

“It seems that way,” he said, smiling, although his expression was much more genuine and free than the other’s. “Alphonse, I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. I couldn’t do any of this alone” 

Alphonse shrugged, his cheeks flushing and his smile tinged with bashfulness. 

“I told you, it was nothing. Really.” 

“You have the strangest definition of ‘nothing,’” Roy replied, amused. 

“It’s the very least I could do,” responded the younger man. After a moment of pause, he slowly shifted his weight and stood. “Well, anyway, I should probably get going. We both have lots of things on our plates today.” 

Roy nodded. 

“Yes. Thank you for taking the time to bring me all of this information yourself,” he said. Then, with a brief return to his earlier seriousness, he continued, eyes locked on Alphonse’s own. “So. Are you going to go talk to your brother now?” 

The younger man took his bottom lip between his teeth and chewed on it for just a moment before delivering a nod. 

“It’s going to be alright, you know,” Roy said, quietly, sincere. 

“I know,” Alphonse returned. He gave Roy a pale impression of a smile, and the general’s heart broke to see it. 

* 

The moment Al stepped out of General Mustang's office, an almost tangible relief washed over him. Yes, the improvement in his mood was still tenuous, at best – he still had to put those bastards who had hurt Edward in jail, and he still had yet to talk to his brother about the whole thing, but at least one of the hovering clouds that had troubled him had been cleared away. He was a cheerful person, and determined to stay that way no matter the situation. 

The air of the large, open office was filled with familiar the clatter of typewriter keys and low voices chattering, a steady backdrop of noise that was somehow soothing, calming in its regularity. If it weren’t for the air of tension that hung about the place, he might have said that everything was normal: that, and the fact that Major Hawkeye was absent from her usual place at her spotless desk. 

Or maybe that wasn’t the only strange thing he noted as he crossed the floor: there was also a strange woman there in a civilian skirt-suit, sitting on the edge of Havoc’s desk with her ankles crossed, chatting with the lieutenant. He grinned at her, and when he spoke, it was much more animated than Al was used to seeing from the man. 

“Seriously, 'Becca. It's been forever,” Al heard as he drew closer. “What have you been up to all this time?” 

“Oh, you know – this, that,” she said, airily waving a hand back and forth. “Taking over the world with my own little media empire.” 

“You sure are,” Havoc said, chuckling. “I’m seriously impressed with what you’ve been able to pull off in just the past few years. And it came in handy, too! Sorry about using your work for our own purposes,” he added, looking a bit sheepish. “But thanks for helping us out. I mean it. You've been amazing.” 

“Thanks, nothing,” she replied brightly. “That interview last night is probably the most popular piece we've ever done. Our phones are flying off the hooks: my staff can't answer them fast enough. Advertisers are going wild, too. They paid us double to replay the interview! It's gone on the air twice since its original air time.” 

Rebecca Daniels, Alphonse guessed, silently taking in the scene in front of him, analyzing it. Even though he had known in his head that Havoc had girlfriends, and that Ms. Daniels had been one of them, it was still strange to see him sitting there in front of her with what was kind of a stupid grin on his face. She was so comfortable there with him, too, which was even weirder. Al had seen the Major with a pretty woman a few times: mostly he either rocked the painfully-awkward thing or hit on the girl so hard and so badly that she looked like she was halfway in between laughing and slapping him. But it was different with these two: they had an easy manner when together that almost made Havoc seem like normal people. 

“What, really?” replied Havoc, audibly surprised. 

“Oh, absolutely. You talk about me helping _you_ out – and I'm sure I did,” she said with another pretty laugh, “but you helped me out at least as much. I believe that's what you call a mutually beneficial relationship.” 

Al came to a stop a few feet away from Havoc's desk, and wormed himself in to the pause in the conversation. 

“Um, hello,” he said, feeling a little bit stuttery and awkward himself, because she really was _very_ pretty. “You must be Ms. Daniels. I'm Alphonse Elric,” he said, giving her a short bow. He was sure that he was blushing, but maybe if he pretended he wasn’t, everybody else would do him the favor of pretending the same thing. Now he knew exactly what the general had meant when he had said that her breasts were right at his eye level. They were kind of staring at him. He straightened up again and kept his eyes on hers, where they belonged, and did his best to act like a gentleman. 

The woman's dark lashes widened around her eyes, and she said, 

“Alphonse Elric? Edward's little brother?” she asked, and Al blushed further, knowing that her eyes were on him. 

“Yes ma'am,” he said, in a small voice, eyes hovering down around the floor. “That's me. Very pleased to meet you. I just came over to say thank you for what you've done for us. We're all in your debt.” 

When he looked back up again, she was smiling fit to burst. 

“Aren't you just the cutest thing I've ever seen,” she said, happily, sliding off the desk and to her feet so she could walk over and throw her arms around him in a warm hug. She pulled back and put her hands on his shoulders, and examined his face. “Well, now. Good looks must just run in your family,” she said, eyes roving from his face down across the rest of his body. “I certainly wouldn't say no to _this_ one, either.” Nothing Al's brain could do to that sentence could possibly make it sound any less suggestive. Blushing brighter, he scrambled back, out of her reach. 

“Um, thank you?” he squeaked, really not sure what one was supposed to say to that; he defaulted to politeness, just to be safe. “I’m flattered -- I just \-- I have a girlfriend already, see --” 

She met that response with bright peals of laughter. 

“Oh, you _are_ the most adorable thing ever. Don't you worry your little head, I wasn't planning on stealing you away from her. She's a lucky girl, though,” she said, and Alphonse distinctly wished that he could melt into the floor. Havoc interrupted the barrage before Al could right himself enough to figure out what to say in response. 

“Aw, leave the poor kid alone,” Havoc said, good-naturedly, taking a cigarette out of his pocket and letting it hang from his lips, unlit. “He's never been flirted with before by someone of your caliber. He doesn't know what to do with you.” 

She laughed again, and put a hand on her hip. 

“And that's a shame, because I know exactly what I'd do with _him,_ ” she said, eyes half-lidded and the corners of her painted mouth turned up as she watched Havoc through her lashes. 

“Can we _please_ talk about something else now?” Al said, voice coming out a bit higher-pitched than he had intended. 

“Oh, if we have to,” she said. “On a more serious note, though, Al – may I call you Al? – like I just told Jean, there's no need to thank me. I enjoyed doing it, and the interview has been a huge hit. I'm very much looking forward to doing the follow-up.” She looked over at the door to Mustang's room, and Al could be forgiven for thinking the expression looked a bit hungry. “I suppose _you_ were the one in there, taking up all of the general's time?” 

“Um, yes?” Al replied, blinking, not sure which question he was responding to. 

“Good – that should mean he's free now, then,” she said, cheerfully, expression every bit that of the cat that had finally caught the mouse. “Well, bye, then, Jean, Al,” she said with a little wave. “I'm off. Got interviews to do, a business to run, you know the deal,” she said. Then, like she was magic, she pulled a little business card out of thin air before handing it to Alphonse. “And if you should ever decide that you have a unique perspective on all the things that are going on that you'd like to share on my show, or change your mind about that girlfriend of yours, here's my number, gorgeous,” she said, with a flirty little wink. 

“Oh,” said Alphonse, clutching at the flimsy card-stock. Luckily, she didn't actually seem to expect any kind of response from him – she just laughed and turned to walk towards the General's office, generous hips swaying back and forth as she went. 

When she was sufficiently out of earshot, and Alphonse had collected himself to some degree, he shoved the business card in his pants pocket and turned back to Lieutenant Havoc, the pink not entirely gone from the apples of his cheeks. 

“Well,” Al said, for lack of anything else to say. “She seems nice.” 

“Yeah,” the major replied, watching her go with this distant, dreamy-eyed look, his stupid grin never faltering. “She's great, isn't she?” 

Yes, they had definitely been together, and judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t entirely over her, either. 

Ah – now _this_ was the kind of playing ground Al was more comfortable on. He pushed all thoughts of worry and his brother to the side, and set his eyes on the problem directly in front of him. 

“Oh,” Al asked, casually, with a little smile and a spark in his eyes. “So you're still into her, huh?” 

Havoc spun around to stare at Al, looking all in a panic.. 

“What? No! Where the hell'd you get that impression? 'Becca 'n I are just friends,” the man sputtered, in classic form. 

“Really? That's not what it looks like from over here,” Al said, thoroughly enjoying the expression on the major's face. “You're all pink and flustered. That’s not really a ‘just friends’ face.” 

“Pink and –” he echoed, but cut himself off before finishing. “I am not! And don’t _say_ something like that where she could _hear_ you,” he said, his voice lowering to a hiss, though his eyes stayed just as wide and frantic as they flickered around the room, as if to make sure that she wasn’t about to magically transport herself from the general’s office and back into hearing range. 

“So if you like her so much, why’d you break up?” the younger asked, ignoring of the other man’s request. 

This seemed to stop Havoc in his tracks for a moment. 

“I didn’t break up with _her_ , okay?” he finally mumbled. “Goddamn, why would I? She’s smart and fun and funny and gorgeous,” he said, and for once he added the last word like it was an afterthought. “What’s not to like? She’s a freakin’ _goddess,_ ” he said, somehow both worshipful and self-deprecating. “I’m just lucky to ever have gotten to date her at all.” 

Al sat, thoughtfully, for a long moment. _A goddess?_ He wondered how Winry would react to being treated like a goddess all the time. She’d probably think it was cute and flattering – at least, she would at first, but it would probably get old pretty quick. 

“You know, no matter how pretty she is, she’s not really a goddess,” Alphonse finally offered, tentative. “She’s just a person like any other person. She has bad days and stuff, when she’s grumpy or her hair sticks up in weird places or she trips over everything ever. I bet it would be annoying for someone to treat you like you’re perfect all the time. I bet that was your problem.” 

Havoc stared at him, wide-eyed. 

“Oh my god,” he finally said, and he said it like he had just had an epiphany. “Oh my _god._ You’re right. How the hell is it that you and your brother give the best advice on women?” 

“Um,” said Alphonse, confused: Edward had _definitely_ never had a girlfriend, and Al hadn’t had one for very long at all, so where on earth was that coming from? 

“The other night, when your brother and I were at the bar,” Havoc said, blithely, unaware of the extra baggage that had become attached to that evening, “he basically told me that my game was off. That I was doing it wrong. That I kept assuming all women wanted roses and chocolates without really paying attention to what they would have preferred. And you know what?” he asked, sounding strangely excited, “He was right. You’re right. That’s _it._ That’s what I did wrong with Becca.” As soon as those words left his mouth, all the energy left him again, and he deflated, sinking into his chair like a popped balloon. “But I guess it’s too late to fix it now, huh.” 

“Ah. Does she have a boyfriend?” Al asked, sympathetic. 

“Well, no. I don’t think so,” Havoc said, his unlit cigarette hanging pathetically from his lips. Al raised an eyebrow. 

“Then how is it too late?” 

An unasked question passed in a cloud over Havoc’s face, replaced as quickly by surprise, then excitement: he fairly well sprang to his feet. Al was pretty sure he had never seen the other man move so quickly before. 

“You’re right,” he said, bright and determined and all kinds of other good things too. “You’re right.” And then, he was off in the direction of the front door. As he went, he called back over his shoulder to Fuery: “I’m taking my lunch!” 

“…But it’s only eight forty-five!” the man replied, with audible confusion. 

“An early lunch! If the general comes out while I’m gone, cover for me!” he said, passing through the door and down the hall before Fuery could finish his long sigh. 

Before anyone had a chance to say anything else, the door to the General’s office opened again, revealing General Mustang, with Ms. Daniels on his arm. He scanned the room briefly, his eyes eventually falling on the empty desk beside Al. 

“Oh, Havoc’s late again?” Mustang said, casually, as he advanced towards the exit, Ms. Daniels by his side. “When he finally manages to show up, let him know that I’m docking a quarter of this week’s paycheck.” 

“Yes, sir,” replied Fuery, mournfully, and Alphonse couldn’t help but laugh at that. 

* 

There were very few things in this world that had ever put Riza Hawkeye on edge: her glassy calm in practically any situation was, in fact, one of her defining features. These past few days, however, had begun to fray at even her iron nerves. She was crucially inept at political maneuvering, and yet now, she had to deal with some of the most underhanded, unscrupulous behavior she had ever had the displeasure of seeing from a government official. 

Weimar’s gambit had surprised her far more than perhaps it should have -- it just went to show that in the ways of politics, at least, she was still quite naive. She had expected him to be well-prepared, but somehow the idea that he would actually go so far as to modify the crime reports had caught her by surprise. 

It hadn’t even occurred to her that such a thing would be possible, if she was to be honest. Every year, the Justice Department published a book of crime reports and statistics that was then given to every police station and library in the country, and extra ones addressing crime reports specific cities that were freely available in the same locations throughout the city in question. Modifying or replacing all of the copies of those books would have been a massive undertaking, to say the least. 

But whatever the logistic improbability, they seemed to have accomplished it: Hawkeye had spent the past day, ever since leaving the council chamber, out in the city. At first, she simply went to the Central library in the hopes that she could find support for her position there, but she had found to her silent dismay that the book she found there provided reports that matched Weimar’s exactly. 

After that, she had gone to other libraries, then to the police stations: but leafing through book after book, she consistently found that the the page had been modified -- or perhaps, more likely, given suspiciously crisp newness of the paper, that the books had been replaced. 

The most useful thing to her would have been to know who had checked the book out over the past several weeks, but she couldn’t seem to get that information, either. If she talked to every person who had checked the books out, she might have a chance of judging when the change had been made. However, attempts to ask one of the library workers for any of the patrons' names had been met with resistance, even a certain combativeness. Providing that information would be quite illegal, they explained to her, and no amount of showing them her military ID seemed to be able to convince them to overlook this. After this pattern had been repeated a number of times, she decided that wrangling illegal information out of irritable librarians was a tack better taken by the professional intelligencers, and let it be. She had none of the skills required to make a person part with their carefully guarded secrets. 

Despite all of the discouraging setbacks, she had found out at least one interesting piece of information, so her day hadn’t been a total waste. 

And thus, she found herself in the office of the Minister of Justice that Tuesday morning, waiting in silence for the man’s arrival. Perhaps, she hoped, she could address the issue right at its source. 

She stood from her chair immediately when the man entered. 

“Hello, Mr. Berlitz,” she said to him: the man's eyes widened upon seeing her, and he turned bright red under his mustache. She didn't bother with pleasantries beyond that: he knew why she was there, and there was no point at all in pretending otherwise. 

“Oh, hello, Major,” he said, with a look like a man who had found rotten eggs in his refrigerator. “It's very nice to see you. Can I help you with something?”  
  


“Yes,” she said, closing up the binder in which she kept all of her notes and tucking it by her side. “I'm here to discuss the crime statistics report with you,” she said, just to make herself extra clear. 

“I see,” he said, fixing his glasses higher up on his face. “Well, I would absolutely love to be able to help you with that, but I actually have an early morning meeting today that I simply can't miss –” 

“No you don't,” she interrupted him, coolly. “I checked your schedule. You're free until your meeting with your staff at ten o'clock.” She had spoken to his secretary prior to the minister's arrival, just so she could avoid that kind of evasion. 

When he heard that, his secretary got yet another dirty look, which seemed to confuse the woman even more. 

“Um, I may have – forgotten to write down an appointment,” Berlitz offered, clearly racking his mind for an excuse. “The Minister of Finance did call yesterday –” 

“I won’t be long,” Hawkeye interrupted, harsh stare locked on the man. 

Apparently, something in the tone of her voice was quite convincing, because he seemed to sag under the force of her determination. 

“Well,” the man finally said, clearly not happy, “since you seem to want to see me so badly, I suppose I can spare you ten minutes.” 

“Thank you,” she replied. He took off his hat and hung it on the rack by the door, then shut the door and moved to sit behind his desk. “I’m certain it will be worth your while.” 

“I’m sure,” he said, folding his hands on top of the table. “Now, what brings you to my office today?” 

“Let's agree not to pretend we don't know what's going on,” she replied. “It will save us both valuable time. I'm here because I know you or your men have switched this year's crime reports – under the direction of General Weimar, I'm guessing,” she said, back rigid. Even though this was not a battleground with which she was familiar, she knew beyond a doubt that she was stronger than this man, and that he was afraid of her. 

“I'm not sure what you mean,” he said, nervousness evident in the slight tremble of his tone. 

“I was surprised to see your... modifications to the report, yesterday at the meeting. From what I recall and what is shown on my own copies of the documents – which I know to be accurate – total crime rates have been decreasing steadily over the past several years. And yet, the versions of the reports that you presented yesterday show the opposite trend.” His nervousness in the face of her steely cool was intensely gratifying. “I spent the rest of the day going to each of the libraries across the city and checking all of the copies of this book, to find evidence supporting the copy I have. As you have no doubt guessed, all of the copies I managed to find support your new document,” she said, hands clasped around the binder in her lap. “But the interesting thing is, the librarians there all seem to remember their copies looking a bit more worn. They were published a number of months ago, after all, and being so important to so many professions, those crime reports are in near-constant use.” 

“So the library patrons are taking extra care with my document. I don't see how this concerns me,” he said, though the corners of his eyes had begun to wrinkle. 

“Well, then let me clarify. One particular librarian that I spoke to remembers that the copy at his library had a significant amount of writing in it, and it doesn't anymore.” She kept her voice low: she didn't even have to raise it at all to keep the man on the edge of his nerves. “He remembers because he fined the patron who did it ten thousand cenz for book vandalism. It's in their records,” she finished. Although that had been the only useful piece of information she had collected during her sojourn, she wielded it carefully and precisely, as if it were a game-ender. “So isn’t it strange that the writing would just disappear like that?” 

Berlitz broke out in a sweat. 

“Maybe the library ordered a new one to replace the one that had been written in, and just never told him,” the man said. 

“He was in charge of library acquisitions and replacements for his branch, and he didn't remember ever ordering a new copy. Besides, there was no mention of such a thing in their records. So please, don't treat me as if I'm stupid,” she said, coolly. 

There was silence between them for a long moment. The rise of the early morning sun slowly shortened the yellow stripes of light on the floor. 

“What do you want from me?” the Minister of Justice finally asked, his shoulders sagging. 

“I want you to admit what you have done, and I want a public apology,” she replied, crisp. “I want you to print the original copies of the crime reports again, and then, I want you to give them out at the next council meeting.” 

Berlitz hunched over his desk, only the set of his arms keeping him from crumbling down onto it. His mustache shook as he talked. 

“I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's impossible – quite impossible,” he said, watching his fingers twiddle nervously around each other. “Even if what you were saying were true – and I'm not saying it is, mind,” he added, unconvincingly, “then I would be severely punished for being privy to such a thing. The Fuhrer might relieve me of my post.” 

_And you would deserve it_ , she added, silently, surprising herself with the viciousness of the thought. 

Part of her very much wanted to reply out loud with that opinion, but something else – the part of her that was trying to be what General Mustang was, the part that was doing its best to adapt to this new world – stopped her. He would never admit what he had done if he thought he was going to lose his position for it. 

Conscience warred with practicality inside of her: she was normally a down-to-earth person, not too concerned with the abstract, focusing more on day-to-day realities, but her conscience and principle didn't often get called into question. She was tasked only with helping General Mustang to get to the top: usually, the General himself was the only person who might have to compromise his morals, even the tiniest bit, in the service of that goal. 

In most situations, she would not have done what she was about to do. And yet, for justice – in the name of the thousands or tens of thousands of lives that could perhaps be saved, she said: 

“I am certain that you personally had nothing to do with the replacement,” she said, ignoring the sticky, uncomfortable feeling that stayed with her after she said it. “It was corrupt aides or other government officials. If you were to tell that to the Fuhrer, General Mustang and his team would support you in your assessment. In fact, we would praise you for being willing to examine your own staff critically.” 

Berlitz's brow furrowed, and his frown carved deeper. 

“Yes, I'm sure that's true,” he said. “But what if, theoretically, the man who hired those aides to print the new booklets and perform the change would want to punish me for the confession? Even though I had nothing to do with it, you understand. What if he could hurt me, somehow, for thwarting his goals?” 

Riza might have been inexperienced, but she was intelligent enough to hear the unspoken words in that statement: the Minister of Justice had been blackmailed. 

“If the aides might be willing to name names...” 

The blood drained from Berlitz's face upon hearing that. 

“No, no. I'm afraid that that couldn't be done,” he said, standing up from his chair and shaking his head, looking a tiny bit frantic. “It's far too dangerous.” 

Riza began to feel the beginnings of anger – actual _anger_ , she realized, to her surprise – bubbling up in her then. 

“And that little bit of danger to you is more important than the danger you have caused to the tens of thousands of human beings implicated in your – 'report'?” she said, the repressed fury giving her voice an edge. “I'm sorry, that your _aides_ have caused _,_ ” she added, that one word even sharper. She got to her feet as well, her arms tight by her sides, her gun a comforting weight at her hip. Silence hung heavy in the air around them – slowly, he put his mask back on over his worry, smoothing out the lines in his face. 

“I think it would be best for you to leave now,” he said, hands folded behind his back. “I will consider your proposition.” 

“Please do. Thank you for your time,” she replied, then bowed and turned to leave, a blackness growing in her -- noting it, dispassionately, she wondered if it might be the beginnings of despair. 

* 

The room in which Edward had spent his first night in jail wasn’t exactly anything to write home about, just an open bar-front cell, probably eight foot by eight foot, with one of those shelf beds in one corner and a tiny, discreet toilet and sink in the other. The view through his bars ended at the closed wooden door that marked the entrance to this wing of the jail blocks at the police station, and nowhere else had a view that was much better: the grimy window up near the ceiling of his little room was barely even transparent enough to let light through, much less to let him see out. His attempts to improve it by scratching some dirt off with his thumbnail had resulted in more damage to his nail than to the grime, and he figured that the warden probably wouldn’t take too kindly to him transmuting the glass clean again, so he gave the thing up for lost and moved on to more fruitful pursuits. 

Upon waking that morning, he actually felt pretty well rested -- strange, especially once you considered the fact that the mattress was little more than an inch of cotton stuffed into a burlap bag and pounded flat, then covered with a couple of sheets and a ratty blanket, but he wasn’t complaining. He counted himself lucky that the weather still wasn’t cold enough that he had needed to _use_ the blanket: the faded, dirty thing might have been blue, once, but now the only distinguishing factor he could pin down was that the edges were ragged, in the way they might have been if they had been seriously chewed upon by someone or something. It still lay where he had flung it the day before, crumpled in the corner -- someplace far away from him where it was unlikely to infect him with whatever infectious diseases it was hiding in its depths. 

Now, in the absence of anything else to do, any other activities with which to busy himself, Edward couldn’t help but lie on his bed with his hands folded behind his head and think. Sleep -- and he had slept, a lot -- had kept him from the cavern of his thoughts for perhaps sixteen hours, but even he couldn’t drop off again after all of that. 

Now, worries that had before been nebulous had taken on crystalline form: what was Al doing? Had he found the report that Ed had wanted him to find? How had he responded? What did he think of Ed, now? ( _He doesn’t think any less of you, don’t be stupid. Even after you trapped his soul in an enormous hunk of metal, he didn’t think any less of you.)_

_God, Mustang must be on a major trip. I confuse the shit out of even myself._

_I wonder what Al did when he found out._

He remembered -- once, long ago, when they had both been so much younger -- hearing Al say that he might go on a crusade of revenge like Scar, if Ed had been killed. Edward certainly wasn’t dead, far from it, but still... 

_Is he going to feel sorry for me? Is he going to worry? What a fuck-up, Elric. All you ever are is trouble._

_I wonder what_ **I** _would_ _do, if I had to see them again?_

Ed rolled over onto his side violently, cradling his head between bent arms, hands still folded together back in his hair. He pulled his knees up close to his chest, restless from the lack of motion. 

_Fuck ‘if,’ you know it’s not a question. You’re going to have to someday, and that day is probably going to be soon._

_Unless Al killed them for you,_ a bitter, somehow hopeful voice added. _Then you’d never have to deal with those motherfucking bastards ever again. They’d get what’s coming to them._

The sound of the hall door being unlocked from the outside open broke him away from his thoughts. He twisted and sat up in his bed to see who had come to visit. The face he saw framed in the crack of the door as it swung open had become pleasantly familiar to him over the course of his imprisonment. Focused, now, on this new distraction, he shoved the tumult of his thoughts to the back of his mind. He had a game to play. 

“Officer Wallace!” he exclaimed, as if he had never been happier to see anyone in his life. “You came to visit! I’m so flattered. I missed you too, handsome,” he said, getting to his feet, and any momentary repugnance he might have felt at saying those words was immediately overwhelmed by the sadistic delight that surged through him at seeing the way the man’s face flashed through his expressions: surprised, then revolted -- maybe even nauseated, if Ed was lucky -- then thin lips twisting down into a bona fide scowl. 

God, he _loved_ what he could do to these people -- playing them like an instrument, poking them in just the right spots over and over again until they got all bent out of shape. It was really incredibly validating. For the first time, he really _understood_ why Mustang enjoyed getting reactions out of people so much. 

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, a cold realization swept over him. 

_Oh god, you’re turning into that bastard._

He swallowed his instinct to give a startled laugh. Mustang really was rubbing off on him in a major way. 

_But is that such a bad thing, really?_

“Shut the fuck up, faggot,” Officer Wallace growled, his bulbous nose turning red with his repressed anger. The word hit him like a slap across the face, but Edward didn’t allow the other man to see it. Ed was the one in control of this situation. He had known the risks of taking this approach, and had decided to do it anyway. “If another word comes out of your mouth, I’m putting you in solitary fucking lockdown.” 

Edward laughed. 

“Wow, you police bastards have even less of a sense of humor than the military ones. That’s an accomplishment. You should be proud of yourselves,” he said. The man’s scowl deepened, but apparently he found nothing in Ed’s words a good enough excuse to send him to solitary. He decided to press on. “So what brings you here at this time of day?” 

“You have a visitor,” the man fairly well snarled before stalking through the door; as he moved out of the way, a tuft of honey-brown hair came into view, with the rest of Alphonse Elric following shortly thereafter. 

Immediately, Edward was caught between two extremes: happiness, at seeing his little brother, and anxiety, because chances were very, very high that he knew what they were going to be talking about. 

“Hey, Al,” he said, softly. “How’s it been?” 

“It’s been okay,” the younger replied, though something was obviously eating him. “I’ve been busy.” He turned to the officer and gave him his best innocent face. “Hey, do you think you could give me and my brother some alone time for a couple of minutes? We have some things we need to talk about. _By ourselves,_ ” he added, the flash in his eyes revealing the steel beneath his sweet exterior. The officer didn’t seem moved. 

“No can do,” he said, crossing his arms: his biceps bulged in meaty curves out from his arms. Ed wondered if maybe the man was trying to look threatening. _Ha --_ wasn’t _that_ a joke. “Prisoners can’t be left unsupervised with visitors. You could slip him a weapon or a key or something.” 

“The warden would be here,” Al pointed out, at just the moment when Edward burst into laughter. 

“Do you guys not know what alchemy is? Is that the problem here? Or do you just have no idea who the fuck I am? ‘Cause lemme tell you, if I wanted out of here, I wouldn’t need any-fuckin-body to slip me shit: you can bet your ass that I’d have been on my way to Xing about five seconds after your boss locked that door for the first time. But I don’t want to get out and go anywhere: I’m a law-abidin’ citizen. So you should prob’ly just accept that if I wanted to get out, there’s no way in hell that you could stop me, and let me have some alone time with my little brother.” 

The man snorted, clenching his arms even more tightly; Alphonse gave his brother a look of amusement and resignation. Of course, he would have preferred to do this in a way that involved less confrontation, but that had never been Edward’s style. 

“Or what?” the officer spat, glaring at the elder brother. “What’re you gonna do about it?” 

“Well,” Alphonse said, smoothly interjecting himself into the space where Edward might have said something stupid, “either of us could use our considerable influence with the movers and shakers in the government to see that your hold on your job became just a little bit weaker than before,” he said, his manner friendly. Edward almost laughed out of sheer surprise: his little brother was getting fucking _devious._ It was all that time with Mustang and his crew, Ed would swear to it. 

The officer was not happy with this: he shifted from foot to foot, his attention returning to the shorter man in front of him. Alphonse watched him in return, hands clasped behind his back, the very picture of innocence. After a moment, the man replied: 

“Fine. You can have your fucking pow-wow or whatever.” He sneered, just in case his distaste hadn’t yet quite come across. “But don’t think you’re getting rid of all of us.” He gave a nod to someone that Edward couldn’t see, at the far end of the hallway -- the warden, he presumed -- and gave Alphonse another glare. 

“I wouldn’t expect so,” Al said. “Thank you for your consideration,” he added as the man turned to leave. “We really do appreciate it.” The man just snorted in return, but this didn’t phase Alphonse any. 

That was his little brother -- polite to a fault, even in situations that really didn’t call for it. 

As soon as the door shut behind him, Alphonse crossed the room in just a few long steps to sit down, crosslegged, on the floor in front of the bars of Edward’s cell. The nervousness that had begun to subside in him over the course of their conversation with the officer rose up in him again, because this was it: he couldn’t put it off any longer. He moved over to the bars of the cell and sat down himself: he began to mirror his brother’s crosslegged position, but the twinge of the stitches at the juncture of his hip reminded him that that might not be the best idea. He kept his uninjured leg in that position, and kept the knee of the other one up to his chest, letting the foot sit on the floor in front of his other shin. He left his forearm balancing on the point of his knee. 

“Hey, Brother,” Al said. 

“Hey,” Ed returned, awkwardly. He sat there in silence: he really didn’t know what to say. What were you supposed to say in this situation? 

“So,” Al began, thankfully taking the initiative himself. “How are you doing?” 

Edward responded automatically, without taking the time to think about it. 

“Good,” he said. “Little bit bored in here, but I get to make all of the guards uncomfortable whenever they come in, so at least that’s _something_ to do.” Alphonse gave a short laugh, although it seemed less than genuine -- distracted, even. Ed couldn’t exactly blame his brother for that, though. 

“I suppose it is,” Al replied. “I’m glad you’re, ah, keeping busy.” A long, pregnant pause fell between them. 

“So, I found the report,” he finally continued, and the words twisted in Ed’s stomach. 

“Yeah. I figured as much,” Edward said, keeping his voice admirably under control. He didn’t say anything else: didn’t want to have to. 

“I just wanted to say, Brother, that I am so, _so_ sorry --” 

“ _Don’t_ , Al,” Edward said, full of conviction. “Listen, not _one thing_ about this is your fault. Nothin’ to be sorry for.” 

“But there _is,_ ” Al returned, and when he met Ed’s eyes they were maybe a little bit watery. Ed flinched and looked away: he _hated_ seeing his little brother like that, hated knowing that it was his fault. “It took me until I read that report to understand why you were so upset. I _knew_ something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, and I didn’t want to push you, so I just let it be. But maybe I could have actually helped you, if I had been able to figure it out.” He paused: Edward collected himself to speak, but before he could, Al continued. “And even besides all of that, I’m so sorry this had to happen to you. It must’ve been horrible.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” Edward said, without force or anger. “It wasn’t that you weren’t being observant enough, or whatever. It’s that I was _trying_ to keep it a secret. I didn’t want anybody to know -- you or Mustang or fuckin’ whoever. Okay? So don’t get all down on yourself about it. Ain’t nothin’ to beat yourself up over.” 

“I know,” Al said. “It’s just hard for me to be rational about it when you’re hurting.” 

Ed shrugged. 

“I’m feelin’ better. Way better. Don’t you worry about me.” It was true. He could get over this shit. He _would_ get over this shit. It wasn’t a question of “if,” it was a question of how quickly he could make it happen. 

Alphonse nodded, slowly, as if he was uncertain -- and why wouldn’t he be? He tightened his face, set his lips in a line, and started talking again. 

“So. I didn’t just come here today to apologize,” he started, and thank god for that, because Edward had had just about all of the apologies he could handle. “I also came here to ask you what you wanted me to do about these men.” Awkward silence strung the room around them for a moment: Ed had no idea how to respond. “So last night, after I read the report, I found out where they lived. I confronted them in their dorm rooms.” There was something behind what Alphonse was saying, a hint of shakiness to his voice that Ed didn’t like, but he kept going before Edward could say anything. “They’re all tied up there, but... I didn’t know what you wanted me to do from there. I could turn them over to the military police -- then, there would be a trial, and they would probably go to jail. But everything would have to... come out into the open, for that to happen.” He paused: Ed hunched over, gritting his teeth. He had known it would come down to this. He just hadn’t wanted to think about it. 

Before Edward could reply, Al’s eyes began to shimmer liquidly in the light, and he burst out, with all of the pained earnestness of a confession: 

“Brother, I could have _killed_ them,” he said, his voice cracking under the emotion and the strain of keeping himself together. “I could have killed them, and obviously I would have been horrified, but -- some part of me would have been _satisfied,_ too. I would have been proud of myself.” 

He took a deep, shuddering breath: Ed reached out through the bars to put a warm hand on his brother’s shoulder, comforting. Thank god, the voices in his head kept silent, the nausea in his stomach barely more than faint motion sickness. Heartened by this, he gave his brother’s shoulder a squeeze: Alphonse bowed his head, and Ed saw, to his surprise, a shining tear-track rolling down his brother’s cheek. 

“Al...” he said, and in an instant all of his fear was gone, all of his trepidation and worry and self-recrimination, because Alphonse was hurting _right then_ and he wasn’t about to let an opportunity to help slip away from him. “Hey. Listen to me. It’s okay. He’s fine. I’m fine.” He tried out a grin, big and bright, like he always did when Al was upset. “Everything’s okay. You did good.” 

“But... I wanted to _hurt_ those guys, Brother,” he said, face tightened and lined like that of a man much older. “I thought about how you must have felt that night and I got so mad I was _sick_ and he was saying such _awful_ things about you and I just _hit_ him, even though he was helpless. He begged for mercy, but that just made me madder because he didn’t show any mercy to _you_ and...” He had begun to cry in earnest now, silently, his face turned to the ground as he tried to keep his eyes out of view. After a moment spent collecting himself, he spoke again. “Do you think I’m a terrible person?” he asked, finally turning his huge, watery eyes up to his older brother. 

There was no question as to how Ed was going to respond to this. 

“‘Course I don’t, Al,” Edward replied, reaching up to ruffle Al’s hair fondly: he hoped that the gesture of affection would make some difference. “You’re hands-down the most amazing person I know. You didn’t do _anything_ wrong, ‘kay? Nobody’s dead, nobody’s even maimed.” He paused and frowned. “Right?” he added, just in case. Al gave a sniffly sort of laugh and pushed the back of his sleeve up against his eyes to dry them. 

“Right,” Al murmured, giving his eyes another great swipe. “Not majorly, anyway. I may have... re-broken a nose,” he added, uncomfortable, fierce, utterly unsure what he was and what he wanted to be. Ed moved his hand back to his brother’s shoulder and squeezed it harder. 

“He probably coulda done with some more hurt,” Edward said, casually, as if he weren’t utterly emotionally invested in this. “But you didn’t do much, and he’s not dead. So go turn the bastards in to the military police and then go do your thing and don’t think about it again. It’s over. ‘Kay?” 

Al watched him, eyes crinkling in concern as they pulled low at the corners, his own distress forgotten for the moment in favor of his brother’s. 

“Are you sure? Is that really what you want?” Al asked, breaking the quiet. 

“Yeah, ‘course,” said Edward. _Am I sure? No, of fucking course I’m not sure. But making a decision is better than just sitting around and waiting for shit to fix itself._ “It’s pretty simple. It’s the right thing to do. When assholes like them do something wrong and illegal, they go on trial, then they go to jail. That’s how this shit works in any sane country.” 

_But imagine the trial: sitting up there on that podium and watching those men watch you, sneering at you as you tell the room where the bad men touched you and everybody there knows exactly what they did, can see what a slut you are, what a weak, pathetic little --_

_Shut up shut up shut_ _**up**_ _\--_

“I guess,” said Alphonse, looking down, oblivious to Edward’s burst of self-abuse. “Yeah, it is the right thing to do, as long as you’re okay.” 

Edward laughed, as if it were a question with an obvious answer. 

“‘Course I am. Who the hell do you think I am? I’m Edward Elric, and I get up and move forward. That’s what I fucking do. This shit ain’t so bad, anyway.” 

The smile with which Alphonse met that declaration was soft, unsure. 

“If you say so.” He paused, thinking, searching Edward’s face. “You know, if you ever need to talk about any of this...” He drifted off, letting the rest of his sentence hang, unspoken, between them. 

“Thanks, Al,” Edward said. “You’re the best little brother ever, you know that?” 

“Of course I am,” replied Alphonse, with a cheer probably intended to lighten the mood. “And don’t you forget it, either.” 

“Don’t worry,” Ed replied, seriously. “I’m not gonna.” 

* 

The lobby of the radio station was warm and inviting, filled with plush furniture in tans and creams and the occasional red accent. Rebecca Daniels and Roy Mustang walked into the room, arm in arm, as she smiled coyly at him. The woman had outfitted herself to stand out in this environment: she wore a smart lavender skirt suit that fell just to her knees, with a matching bell-shaped cloche hat pressed over chin-length auburn hair that curled in at the tips. 

“Welcome to my humble studio,” she said as they entered, giving a grand gesture towards the room with her unoccupied hand. “I don’t believe I can emphasize enough how pleased I am to have you on the show, General Mustang. Edward’s show yesterday has been the talk of the town. I think it really hit a nerve with a lot of people,” she said, ushering him in through the small wooden door at the back of the lobby into the rest of the building. 

“Please, call me Roy,” he said, his voice low and suggestive. She gave a light laugh, like birdsong, in response to his flirtatious smile. “We’re friends, aren’t we? No need to hold to such formalities. And at any rate, thank you for having me. The favor you’re doing me is enormous. I’m not likely to forget it anytime soon.” 

“Alright, then. Roy it is,” she said, flashing him white teeth. “And it’s hardly a favor. I have colleagues who might actually kill to get you on their shows right now.” 

“Really. That’s interesting, because there’s nothing that would be less likely to get me to come on their shows than a murder,” he replied, without a hint of seriousness, as she navigated them down the long hallways, passing occasional staff or crew, towards what Roy could only assume would be the recording room itself. 

“You know, I guessed as much,” she said, laughing. “But if that had been what you wanted, let’s just say that I would have been every bit as willing.” 

That earned a chuckle from Roy. 

“You’re quite a determined young lady. Well, I’m thankful that we shall never have to test your mettle.” 

They came to a stop in front of a wooden door, and Rebecca opened it, turning her head just slightly to watch him through the corner of her eye, the corners of her lips turned up. 

“Agreed,” she responded, opening the door, then guiding him through into the outer studio. Through a large glass window on the far wall he could see the recording space itself, little more than two microphones hanging from the ceiling with a desk between them. “In any case, back to business,” she said, with a pleased edge to her voice that made Roy think that she had been restraining herself for a long time. “I had a bit of an idea where I wanted this thing to go,” she said, in a way that made it clear that her “bit of an idea” actually meant “I have this planned out from A to Z.” “Listening to all of the things that callers are saying, I’ve decided that. Most of what people seemed to be enjoying so much about Edward’s interview is the actual details about the romance between you two. Scandalous and sweet -- a deadly combination,” she said with a laugh. 

“Yes, I imagined so,” Roy said. “He’s really quite charming when he wants to be, isn’t he?” 

“And a different kind of charming when he doesn’t,” the woman added. “Oh, hello, Charles,” she said, as the little man in front of the sound panel turned around to wave at her. He had a bulbous nose, a crooked front tooth, and looked like he did his own haircuts, but when he smiled at her it was genuine. 

“Hey, Rebecca,” he replied. When he looked over at Roy, the smile dropped off of his face almost immediately: he looked the general up and down with a critical eye, as if appraising him for auction. “I take it this is Mustang?” He seemed thoroughly unimpressed -- or maybe just jealous. 

“Quite,” she said. “We’re going to take a minute or two to discuss our interview prior to going in there, so if you have everything ready on your end,” she gestured to the sound panel to indicate her meaning, “you can go get a coffee or something, if you like.” 

“I will in a minute,” he said. “But I’ve actually been waiting for you. There’s a call for General Mustang on the studio phone.” He gestured to the telephone beside him: it was off the hook, on its side, as if anxious to be picked up. 

Roy frowned. How many people knew that he was here? Not many. Just his team and Alphonse, and it would have to be something serious for any of them to call him at the studio. They wouldn’t interrupt him in the middle of something so important for anything less than sheer disaster. A chill ran through him: had something else happened with Edward? 

“Who is it?” 

“She said her name was Hawk-something,” Charles answered. “Hawkeye, maybe?” 

Roy stalked across the floor, knees locked and shoulders hunched; upon reaching it, he grabbed the phone and shoved it up to his ear. 

“Mustang here,” he said. “What’s the problem?” 

“General, sir,” she said, never missing a beat, even though she might have been waiting on that line for twenty minutes. “I have some news.” 

“I assumed as much. Bad news?” 

“Yes, sir,” she replied, steady as ever. “It’s Weimar, sir. While we’ve been busy with other things, he has been plotting relentlessly.” 

The general bared his teeth in a humorless approximation of a smile. 

“I’m shocked,” he said. “Really. What could the good man be up to?” 

There was a long pause, and when she spoke again, her steady voice was laced with emotion. 

“There have finally been consequences. Our intelligence team has just informed me that last night, several teams of his loyal men went to the homes of citizens suspected of involvement with Ishballan refugees and begun a series of arrests. Ishballan individuals were found on the premises of more than one of those families.” Roy stiffened: the cold shiver from earlier came back full force, settled in the pit of his stomach as a formless, dangerous anxiety. “If the military police force felt that any of the Ishballans were less than one hundred percent cooperative, they were shot immediately. The rest of the Ishballans and their supporters are in jail.” 

He absorbed that information like the shock of a crash. 

“…How many dead?” he finally asked, valiantly keeping the tremor that threatened in his voice at bay. 

“Six at last count, sir. But intelligence suggested, and I agree, that this may just be the beginning of something much more sinister – and far-reaching.” 

_Three years of fire and death and flames and burning bodies, the ash of corpses in your lungs, the wide-bright red eyes of a young boy turned back to their component elements, his life nothing more than a shadow on the wall –_

_ashes to ashes, dust to dust_

_Maybe, if the world has an ounce of fairness, someday I will burn for what I’ve done._

The memories choked him, thick and physical as the black smoke that had risen from his funeral pyres. 

_In some small way, however you can, you have to atone. You have to pay it back – pay back some small fraction of your debt by saving_ _**these**_ _people, here, now –_

_Is it too late? What more can you do than you’ve already done?_

Slowly, he turned around, his gaze locked right on Rebecca. She had pulled half of her bottom lip in between her teeth, and had begun to chew on it, nervously. 

“And no news outlets have reported on this yet.” 

“We don’t even know if they know about it,” she responded. “But my guess is that many of them have, and that for some reason” -- she put a heavy emphasis on “some reason,” as if she had some very advanced theories about what that “some reason” might be -- “they are simply not reporting on it. Bu that shouldn’t be a surprise.” 

No, of course it wasn’t. Even if they did know about the evils committed the night before, half the media outlets were directly in the military’s pocket, and the other half were in the business of selling papers and advertising slots, and were only incidentally news organizations. These kinds of papers subscribed to the lowest, stupidest possible idea of what would interest the general public: and much to Roy’s disappointment, their opinions were proved in some way true. Pictures of government officials in compromising positions did tend to sell better than articles about human rights abuses. 

“It isn’t,” he said, his mind working steadily, certainly through the possibilities. “Thank you, Major. I appreciate the call. I’ll take it from here,” he said, keeping all of his emotions in the back of his mind, locked there in his very own Pandora’s box. 

“Do you have a plan, sir?” she asked. 

“Don’t I always?” He paused. “Inform intelligence that they’re to stop work on what they’re doing --” _collecting evidence for that goddamn trial_ “-- and that they’re to turn their attention to this new matter, instead. I want to know what he’s doing and when he’s doing it. I want to know it _before_ it happens. Are we perfectly clear?” 

“But sir,” she said, sounding more surprised than he expected, “your trial is in less than two weeks. If you stop collecting evidence now --” 

“I understand that, Major. But this matter has priority.” _You becoming Fuhrer won’t make any difference at all if you let all of the rest of the Ishballans die before you can get there._ “And besides, I have a team of skilled outside investigators working on my end of things.” _That, at least, is true: Alphonse and Madame Christmas can handle whatever you throw their way._ “So don’t worry yourself about that. You just do the work I’ve assigned to you, and everything will be fine,” he said, with a confidence he didn’t feel. 

Even though he couldn’t see her face, he knew from the quality of Hawkeye’s silence that she sensed his discomfort. She knew better, however, than to shake the card house of his confidence any further by saying anything else to that effect. 

“Sir,” she said, the word a vocal salute. “I’ll let them know right away.” 

“Thank you, Major,” he said, and as soon as he heard the click of the telephone on the other end of the line, he hung up. Once his attention was back fully on Rebecca again, she spoke. 

“That didn’t sound good,” she said with a nervous laugh, doing her best to inject some levity back into the situation through her manner. “So what happened?” 

The gears running in Roy’s brain clicked to a stop: he made his final decision. He straightened himself up, refocused his thoughts, and strode over to her. 

“Let’s sit down, Ms. Daniels,” he said, a flame in his eye. Maybe he couldn’t take down Weimar right at that moment, maybe he couldn’t burn those men who had attacked Edward until they screamed, but at least he could channel all of that emotion into something constructive – into something that would actually _help_ , both now and in the long run. 

“Uh-oh. Now _that’s_ a serious look,” she said, moving to sit down at the small table there in the outer studio room. Roy followed her lead and sat down across from her. “You look like you mean business. You going to spill?” 

The general watched her for a moment, considering: her eyes were bright, sharp, and she watched him with every bit as much interest as he had in her. He prided himself on being a good judge of character, and had seldom been proved wrong about his first impressions: and his first impressions of Ms. Daniels had been that she was a clever woman with a clever plan, and uncompromising in the pursuit of her goals. 

She would be perfect. 

“How would you like,” he began, carefully, “to be the first media outlet to report on some of the most major news to break in Central City since the death of Fuhrer Bradley?” 

The smile that spread across her features split her pretty face in two; she laced her fingers together, crimson nails dark against her pale skin, and propped her chin up on her hands. 

“I’m intrigued. Keep talking,” she said, and he did. 

* 

When Mustang arrived at the police station, heralded by two guards who scowled like their bad mood was genetic, the only other people in the main cell block were Ed and the warden. Suspicion rolled off of his escorts in cloying waves, and Roy noted upon entering that the warden wasn't any better – he watched the general through narrowed eyes, slouched in his chair with his arms crossed at the end of the hall. With some irritation, Roy wondered what the man thought he was going to do that would necessitate such an attitude – but he straightened his back and shook it off. 

The block's one resident lay on his bed with his hands folded behind his head, apparently staring up at the ceiling, his shirt discarded in a crumpled pile on the floor, for no reason that Roy could discern. 

“Hello, Edward,” said Roy, as his little entourage reached Edward's cell door. The room was more or less open to the hall, as the front wall was more or less made up of long bars in a grate pattern, with perhaps half a foot of distance between each of them. There was just enough room between the bars that he had an excellent view, but there was still very clearly a physical boundary between them. But then, he supposed, that was probably precisely the point. 

Immediately upon seeing the general enter, Edward sat up and smiled, the sight of which was actually enough to distract Roy from the sight of the man's perfectly defined chest and stomach – but not quite enough to distract him from the long wound across his shoulder, inexpertly sewn together but beginning to go pink at the edges as it healed. He decided not to mention it, or think too much about it: the younger man seemed to be feeling quite well, and Roy didn't intend to dampen his spirits. 

Abruptly, he made the decision not to tell Edward about the Ishballan arrests -- or not yet, at any rate. He was already going to have to tell the younger man about his unofficial demotion: there was no need to pile on the bad news, especially when he seemed to be feeling better, for the moment. 

“You bastard, what took you so long,” Edward replied, cheerfully. “I've been here since last fuckin' night.” 

“Well, isn't someone in a good mood,” said Roy, dryly, as if quite surprised to come to jail and find his lover so happy – though, in truth, he was glad to see Ed acting somewhat normal once again. “And I apologize for my absence, but perhaps _some_ of us have actual work to do that prevents us from coming down to the police station and reading the riot act every single little time our lover gets thrown in jail,” the man drawled, and it had exactly the effect that he had hoped: Ed looked like he was about to start steaming at the ears. Before the man could say anything, however, Roy turned away from him to command the guards: “You two. Leave. I want a moment alone with my lover.” 

The officers shared a look of surprise. 

“Where the hell do you get off trying to order us around?” one of them asked, incredulity blooming through his voice. 

Roy’s smile did not falter, but his eyes narrowed. 

“Am I or am I not one of the only four generals of the Amestrian State Military? The military that, may I remind you, is directly in charge of police funding and personnel.” He paused to let this sink in for a moment. “I would like a moment alone with my lover, if you please.” 

The men turned to each other: after a moment of silent communication, one of them twisted back to face the general. 

“We can give you ten minutes.” Then, he added: “And the warden stays.” 

Roy sighed – inconvenient, but not unworkable. 

“I suppose that will do. Thank you kindly,” said Roy, as the men began to file out, throwing surreptitious glances back towards the two of them. The warden's look of mistrust only sharpened, though Roy couldn't really find it in him to care anymore. 

Edward grinned at Roy, then got to his feet and walked over to stand a few feet in front of his lover, only the bars of his cage and a few feet separating the two. 

“Hey. How've you been?” Ed asked, looking radiant and half-naked and really, Roy couldn't decide whether he wanted to look at that brilliant smile or that hard expanse of skin more. He settled for letting his gaze slide between the two, feeling rather blindsided by the simple seductiveness of his lover's presence. 

“Edward,” Roy began, slowly, his voice a low rumble, “may I suggest that you put your shirt on again?” 

He was going to respect his lover's boundaries. Physical relief was down near the bottom of his priority list: his baser instincts would never get the best of him, no matter how beautiful his younger lover looked then; no matter how much he wanted to press Edward up against a wall and fuck him there, in the sight of whoever wanted to watch; no matter how much he wanted rut against the man until they both shuddered and came in their clothes, Edward's moans on his neck and Roy's in his lover's hair. 

“Why would I want to do that?” asked Ed, slowly, his seductive affect now clearly intentional. Roy closed his eyes on instinct, as if by so doing he could block out that purr in Edward's voice, the confident, predatory edge he heard there. This was such a deliberate, practiced torment: Roy knew it well, and long deprivation wasn’t making it any easier to handle. 

“Because I had been under the impression,” the general said, keeping his tone even, “that you didn't want to be touched. I am _going_ to respect that. But please, for the love of god, don't make that any more torturous for me than it already is.” He opened his eyes again, focusing them on the blonde's golden stare, and tried as hard as he could not to let his sheer animal _want_ show in the openness of his face. 

Briefly, the older man detected a twinge of uncertainty in the cast of Edward's eyes, but it was gone again in a swift second. 

“Mm. But I like seein' you hot and bothered,” said the younger man, still smiling. 

Watching the sudden twists of his lover's emotions, the pieces clicked into place in Roy's mind: suddenly, the meaning of that flash of discomfort became painfully apparent. The younger alchemist liked tempting the general because Roy's response flattered him, because it made Ed feel powerful and wanted, but at that moment, he liked doing so where the older man simply could not touch him. In some ways, the prison cell was a safe space for him: simple physical distance allowed Ed to take their relationship at his own pace, as he slowly reminded himself what it meant to trust another person with his body. 

Also, judging from his amused glances at the guard watching them, Edward was thoroughly enjoying making the police uncomfortable with his unabashedly sexual comments. The man was only just now beginning to learn the kind of power he had over everyone around him, if he would only choose to take it. 

“Well done,” said Roy, letting his gaze linger on exposed skin, on the way Ed's pants hung obscenely low off of his hips. “Mission accomplished. I am _very_ bothered. Now you really should put your shirt back on, because I want to have a conversation with you that may be entirely impossible if you don't cover yourself up.” 

“Damn. Too bad,” Edward replied, and gave him a cheeky grin before turning to pick up the article of clothing in question and beginning to shimmy into it – _oh god_ , _it's one of his black tank tops_ , he realized with a twinge of both despair and amusement. Even when Ed had it fully on, the thing was so tight that it rode up significantly at his stomach – combined with his low-rise pants, it left a swath of perhaps eight inches of hard, muscled abdomen bare to his eyes, and so it didn’t actually help the situation at all. 

Roy, tracing eyes across the wide stripe of golden skin at his lover's navel, elected to leave it at that. 

“Thank you,” he said instead, as if he were entirely unaffected by the sight, though he could see in the way Edward grinned that he saw right through the façade. “In any case, it's good to see you looking good again.” 

“Good t'be feelin' good again,” Edward replied, stretching and folding his hands comfortably behind his head. “So, you did your own interview for Miss Daniels's radio show today, right? 

“I did,” Roy said, with a short nod. “I just finished recording it perhaps an hour ago. It'll be on tonight at six o'clock. That was one of the reasons I didn't come to visit you as soon as the station opened this morning.” 

“Yeah, I gotcha,” said Edward. “It's no big. So how'd it go? Was she another casualty of the legendary Mustang sex appeal?” 

Roy laughed and shook his head. Rebecca Daniels was a compulsive flirt, which Roy appreciated, and she certainly made her interests known when she had them, but she was nobody's casualty. She knew how to handle men like Roy Mustang. Privately, he suspected that this was part of the reason why she had been so taken with Edward: in a world where human interactions were often treated as an elaborate game, Edward was an unusual specimen. Devoid of art and artifice, Ed's own brand of wit and charm was probably quite refreshing. 

_Or maybe,_ Roy thought, with a soft, private smile, _you're just projecting._

“You say that as if you aren't such a casualty yourself,” the general said in reply, with just a hint of a purr and a lengthening of his smile. “And I believe that if she could have either of us, she would have her heart set on you.” 

A faint blush overtook Edward’s cheeks, but he didn’t let that derail him. 

“A girl who prefers me to you – well _that’s_ a first. You jealous?” he asked with a grin, still dusted pink at his cheeks. 

“A first? Hardly,” Roy said with a laugh, although he didn’t explain further. “But what on earth do I have to be jealous of?” he continued, lightly. “After all, she just _wants_ you. I actually have you. I would say that I am in the far superior position, here.” 

Edward made a face, halfway between embarrassed and disgusted. 

“Not jealous of _her,_ dumbass. Jealous of _me,_ ‘cause I’ve apparently stolen your ability to make girls swoon,” he said, a healthy amount of pointed sarcasm inserted into the last part of that sentence. 

This made Roy laugh – Edward’s obliviousness was part of his charm. The man had been making girls swoon for _years,_ and he had no idea. 

The general’s spirit began to genuinely lighten: if the younger man was able to make those kinds of jokes without a problem, clearly he was beginning to feel better. Perhaps now was the time to test the waters. 

“Why on earth would I have an issue with you using your charms to make girls fall for you when you do the same to me, constantly?” he asked, his voice low and suggestive. 

Edward snorted, as if he thought this were a joke. 

“What, do I make the great General Mustang swoon?” 

“Yes. Daily,” Roy replied, seriously. This response seemed to surprise Edward: his blush bloomed across the rest of his face, even as his eyes went round and startled. 

“You’re making fun of me,” he said, looking more than a little bit horrified. “Don’t fuckin’ make fun of me.” 

“I assure you, I’m not,” the elder replied, unable to help the way his mouth curled up into a genuine smile. “Really!” he said, in response to the other man’s disbelief. “I’m hurt that you doubt me.” 

“Right,” mumbled Edward, the pink of his cheeks never subsiding. “I’ve got no reason to doubt you, because you never make fun of me about anything, ever.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t go _that_ far,” said Roy, and Edward’s fist flew out through the bars of his cell to connect with the general’s shoulder. “Ow,” the man said, rubbing the offended spot. “That hurt. That was your metal hand, you know.” 

Ed smirked a bit. 

“I know,” he drawled in reply. 

Roy laughed, more than willing to sacrifice his shoulder to see his younger lover in good spirits again. 

“Well, consider me chastised.” He let his hand fall to his side again as the imprint of the metal fist faded. “I apologize for my wrongdoing. I shall never tease you again,” he said, solemnly. 

“Jackass,” Ed replied, good-naturedly, though his cheeks were still flushed. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure you had a reason for being here other than flirting with me and making fun of me, am I right?” 

Roy nodded: he did indeed have some things he wanted to bring up with his younger lover. 

“Yes. A number of them, actually,” he said, his tone becoming more serious as their topic did the same. “I wanted to let you know that I just got done recording Miss Daniels’s radio show.” 

“Yeah? How did it go?” 

“Probably not as well as yours did, but still well. I told her that you had been jailed, and why. I hope that’s alright.” 

Edward moved so that he could lean on the concrete wall separating the cells from each other, right at the corner where it met with the cell bars. He crossed his arms loosely, more for comfort than out of defensiveness. 

“'Course,” the blonde said. “I wanted you to. It all fits into my plan – I just had no way of tellin' you so at the time. But Al figured it out and let you know, yeah?” 

“Within minutes.” 

“I figured he would. He knows me better'n anybody.” 

The tone of pride in the younger man’s voice warmed Roy through. 

“He's a remarkable young man,” he said. “But, so are you. One of the other reasons I came here was to thank you for your noble sacrifice. Miss Daniels’ horror at hearing that you had been jailed like a common criminal really drove home why you allowed yourself to be jailed in this way.” 

“No prob,” said Edward, keeping his voice forcibly casual. “Anything we can do to discredit him and to drum up sympathy for us will be great. The sooner we get some kind of mass support on our side, the sooner I'm out of here, and the sooner you get off the hook for this shit. Then everything can go the fuck back to normal.” 

If he had been allowing his doubts to surface, Roy might have thought that Edward was putting too much faith in the police’s desire to do the right thing. They weren’t exactly a democratic institution, after all. 

Then again, wasn’t the general doing the exact same thing? Putting faith in the establishment’s desire to do the right thing, trying to sway the people up top by appealing to the hearts and minds of the people below? 

“Yes,” Roy said, “That is the hope. But becoming the people’s darling becomes much more difficult if you've been antagonizing the police, which I hear that you have been.” 

“Only a little bit,” replied Edward, cheerfully. “And don’t worry, it’s all part of the plan. Mostly I’m just making 'em uncomfortable. 'Sfunny how weird they get when they see me without a shirt. It's like they think that I'm gonna make 'em gay just by bein' around ‘em.” 

Roy raised an eyebrow at Edward's cheery delivery. 

“They treat me like I've got a plague or somethin', and if they look at me for too long, or if I make a pass at them, they're gonna catch it too.” He didn't seem overly hurt by this. “They freak out. But I can use that to my advantage,” he continued, low enough that only Roy could hear, his golden eyes sparking with agenda. 

In that moment, everything settled into place, and Roy recognized the last crucial factor of Edward's plan: if he antagonized them enough, if he flirted with them enough, then a police officer might actually respond to this provocation with violence. The public tended to take it badly when police assaulted prisoners, especially when those prisoners were famous heroes and well-loved by many. Maybe after everything else, the resulting scandal could get the public – and the media – to switch sides. 

At least, he suspected that that was the idea. Whether it would work that way in practice or not was another question. 

The general stepped forward, stopping when his shirt brushed the cell bars, and slowly – very slowly, he didn't want to startle the other man – reached a hand through the metal, towards Ed's face. The man watched it coming: he didn't flinch back as Roy's bare hand met his cheek and cupped it, palm cool against soft skin. 

“I know this is probably a stupid thing to say to you,” he said, stroking his thumb across the blonde's cheekbone, “but try not to do anything too rash? Please don't endanger yourself for my sake.” They wanted to catch the public eye, but not for the wrong reasons. “Be careful.” 

Then, Edward gave him an impossibly wide, shining smile: slowly, he moved his hand up to where the general's rested on his cheek and clasped it gently. 

“I'm always careful,” said Edward; and then, with a long smirk that caught Roy entirely off-guard, drew the man's hand off of his cheek and over towards his mouth. 

Roy's breath caught in his throat as his first finger slid past Ed's lips into the soft, wet heat inside. The man's golden eyes were half-lidded but intense, and he locked his gaze on the general's as he took that first finger in to the hilt, swirling his soft-rough tongue around it. The groan that forced its way through Roy's throat was instinctual, primal; the sudden pressured ache between his legs was even more so. The skin of his finger hummed with electric current as all of his consciousness focused onto that one point, onto the slick wet heat, the feeling of a tongue exploring the pads of his fingers, every joint and line of skin – the assault on his senses ignited a line of fire that burned straight to his core. 

The smirk in the blonde man's eyes was evident, even though his mouth was too busy to comply. 

The sound of Roy's shallow breathing began to fill his ears as everything past the two of them became distant, unnecessary; the little noises Edward made as he suckled made painfully arousing counterpoints to each quick breath. And then, just when Roy thought he had begun to remember how to breathe again, Ed withdrew the finger from his mouth for just long enough to allow him to take a second one in, and then the general was lost again. Ed explored that one as well, suckling, licking – he really _worked_ them, lips sliding sensuously up and down the digits, like they had done on Roy's cock so many times. 

He remembered suddenly that there was another man in the room: a quick glance over told him that the guard was still there, and that he was aggressively not watching the two of them, his glare focused straight at his own knees. The flush on his face could have been embarrassment, or disgust, or anger, but it didn't really matter. 

Edward glanced in the same direction as the general, then gave the fingers one last suck and a lick for good measure before drawing them out so he could speak. 

“Him watchin' is getting you pretty excited, huh?” His voice was low and breathy, and Roy stared at his lips. “Fuckin' exhibitionist.” 

“You're one to talk,” said Roy, his voice hitching as Ed's hands passed through the metal bars and onto Roy's uniform jacket. “You wouldn't have said that if you didn't like it yourself. Or –” He lost his voice as buttons came undone, and the blue uniform top fell open, revealing his white button-up underneath. The buttons of that shirt fared no better than those of the last. It occurred to the general that he should probably stop Ed, that this was probably a bad idea, but his neglected erection voiced a dissonant opinion, and right at that moment its vote was the only one that mattered. He had a vague sense that he had been going to say something, but no part of him seemed to care enough to remember 

The hand Mustang had left through the bars drifted down instinctively towards the tan and tempting line of Edward's neck, needing desperately to touch: but the other man flinched and pulled slightly away before Roy's hand could even get there. The blonde froze, as if he had caught himself doing something wrong: he stood very determinedly still. His body had gone rigid, as if he couldn't move, or was forcing himself not to. The general withdrew his hand. 

“I'll get you back later,” said Roy, meaning every word. Ed smiled, and though he didn't voice it, Roy could sense his gratitude in the way his muscles relaxed, the way the tense line of his shoulders softened. His hands began their journey down Roy's chest again. 

“You'd better,” said Edward, breathlessly, as he unbuttoned the last button on the general's shirt. 

“Hey,” came a voice of protest from the back corner of the short hallway between the cells: the guard. He did not sound happy. “Stop that immediately! Step away from each other. I don't care _who_ you are, I'll have you kicked out for public indecency.” 

Even those words weren't enough to kill Roy's erection, but they did at least remind his rational mind to wake up and pay attention. He groaned his disappointment, then gave an apologetic smile to his young lover as he pulled slightly away. 

“Ah, better not to get into any more trouble,” he said, ignoring the painful throb of his body and Edward's disappointed noise. As Roy's hands moved up to begin buttoning his shirt again, they brushed up against Edward's: the man shivered under the light touch and pulled them back into his cell. Whether this was a good shiver or a bad one, he couldn't tell. 

In seconds, both the shirt and the uniform jacket were buttoned up again, and but for a slight flush on their cheeks, they looked entirely presentable, as if nothing untoward had happened between them. 

“Guess you're right,” said Edward, and Roy wondered if the man was disappointed or secretly relieved. He wanted to touch, to run his hand through golden hair, but restrained himself. 

“I always am,” Roy replied, with a crooked smile. He paused, watching the rise and fall of Ed's chest – then, after a moment, he said: “How are you? I mean, really.” 

Ed's returning expression was a smile, at least in name, though Roy would have been hard-pressed to call it happy. 

“I'm doin' okay. A lot better than I was,” he said, closing one hand around a metal bar. “A lot better,” he repeated. 

The younger man was “okay” enough that he could touch Roy, but not enough that Roy could touch him back. It was better than nothing, he supposed. 

“I'm glad to hear it,” Roy said. Then, softly, “I want you to know that I would do anything for you, Edward. Really, I would. I would hurt them if you asked me to, no matter the consequences.” 

The smile the blonde gave him then was easier, more genuine. 

“'Course you would. But I've got the best little brother in the world, you know.” The look in Edward's eyes changed again, simultaneously harsher and duller than it had been. “He's already taken care of it.” 

“Hm. Has he?” Roy asked: when he had talked to Alphonse earlier, the path that the man was going to choose to take was still an open question. 

“Yeah.” A pause. “He took it harder than I thought he would, in some ways,” Edward said, thick emotion hidden behind every consonant, every syllable, just barely visible in the way his brows pulled down over his eyes, leaving deep creases across the plane of his face. 

“It’s not an easy thing to hear, that a person you love has been hurt like that,” Roy said, keeping his tone as neutral as he could manage. Edward’s face twisted up, bitter: he could imagine what was going on in the younger man’s head at the moment -- _if I had been stronger, neither of you would ever would have had to feel that pain._ His heart hurt to think it. “But he’s a strong kid. He did fine, in the end.” 

“Yeah, I guess so.” He paused, golden eyes flicking up to catch on Roy’s own. “I hear he came to talk to you today?” 

Roy nodded, but stopped short of providing any more information. It was quite possible that Alphonse didn’t want his brother to know some of the things that he had shared with the general that morning. 

“Yes, he did. But when he left, he hadn’t yet told me what he planned to do,” Mustang said, seriously. After a moment, the other man replied. 

“He set military police on ‘em,” he said, his tone and face a tumult of emotions. “He knows some of the MPs” -- of _course_ he did: sometimes Al seemed to know everybody -- “and gave them the report.” The tumult did not subside, but he bared his teeth in a grin. “The MPs like me. They weren’t so thrilled to hear about this shit. They’re in the military jail now, and their bail is about 750,000 cenz apiece,” he said, with a humorless laugh. “Some lawyers are preparing a case against ‘em. So this’ll be fun.” 

_Thank god those men are being jailed in a different building from Edward: I have no idea what he would do if forced to see them, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to find out that way._

Would the man attack them, take out his vengeance on them? Would he give them what they deserved like he hadn't been able to at their last meeting – or would he freeze up, paralyzed in the rushing current of guilt and memory that circled in a long-disused section of his head? 

What kind of terror must he have felt, that night, alone and vulnerable and at the mercy of those who had none? Maybe he had really thought they were going to get him. Maybe he had thought he was going to die. The general hadn't asked, and Edward hadn’t volunteered the information. 

Roy wondered if, maybe, hidden in the irrational part of Edward’s mind where the primal instincts lodged, the man was still a little bit afraid of them. 

The general’s sheer impotence grated at him: he wished that he could have done _something,_ that he could have burned them like they deserved, or failing that, that he could have spoken a quiet word or two to have the men in question transferred to the North to freeze to death under Major General Armstrong's unforgiving hand, but he couldn't. The day Edward had been attacked had also been the day that Mustang had lost all of his powers as a general. His hard-won title was a word only. For now, at least, he was little more than a paper tiger. 

“I wish,” Mustang began, his voice hard with the effort of keeping all of his thoughts inside, “that I could have been the one to confront them. I wish I could have had that pleasure.” 

“Yeah, but you couldn't. I'm glad you didn't. I'll say it a million times if I have to: you fuckin' have shit to do, Mustang, and that shit's more important than this.” He paused, cocked his head to the side, let the corners of his mouth crook upwards. “Listen, I know you've got my back. But when you can't get it, don't worry about it, 'cause Al's got me too.” 

The feeling that clenched his chest then could have been warmth, or could have been guilt. He didn't examine it too closely. 

“I know he does.” He paused: he knew he would have to tell Edward sometime. He couldn't avoid it, and he would be a hypocrite if he tried, after all of their conversation about trust and about communication and letting those you love into your head, into your life, no matter how ashamed you felt of yourself. “Listen, Edward. I have something to tell you.” 

Ed tensed up again, and his eyes went wide and wary. 

“What?” he asked, like he was afraid of the answer Roy was going to give. Roy lowered his voice, perfectly conscious of the guard in the corner: the man didn't appear to be listening in, but he couldn't afford to take any chances. 

“I wanted to let you know that on Friday, Fuhrer Hakuro stripped me of all my powers and responsibilities as a general. I get to keep the title, until such time as the court rules on my case, at which point my status will depend on the nature of the ruling.” 

The golden eyes in front of him widened further. 

“But... that's _ridiculous!_ ” Edward said. “You haven't been convicted of anything! You haven't done anything wrong!” 

“Please keep your voice down. I don't want the warden to hear.” 

“But it's so _stupid_ ,” Edward said, more quietly this time, as his face crumpled into a mix of confusion and shock. “You had things you were _doing_. Important things! Not just things you were planning for someday, but things you were doing _now._ Weren't you keeping the military from tryin' to exterminate the Ishballan refugees?” 

A surge of nausea hit Roy then as thoughts of the night before hit him, gruesome images of the deaths that he could have prevented and _didn't_. But he kept it under control, kept his face placid, his body immobile. He wasn't going to tell Edward -- not now. Not when he already had so many things to deal with, to think about. They would have this conversation eventually, but that time was not now. 

“Yes. I imagine those things I was doing were the source of the problem,” Roy said, voice low. “I was a real threat to someone, or to something.” 

“ _Are_ a big threat to someone,” Ed corrected, without thinking. This one small sentence, a single word of blind faith, bolstered Roy more than Ed knew. The blonde paused, searching Roy's face and thinking. Finally, Edward said: 

“Why didn't you tell me?” The words came out pained, like he was guilty, like he was blaming himself for it and probably everything else too, and if the man had been thinking properly, he would have known that every inflection of his own voice was answering his question. There were a number of reasons that Roy hadn't said anything up until that point, and one of them had been that he had known how Edward would react – had known what that expression on his lover's face would look like. Perhaps it was a bit hypocritical, but he did understand Edward's instinct to keep secrets. 

“I did tell you, just now,” Roy pointed out, though he knew that it was a bit of an evasion. “But prior to that, there were other things we needed to deal with. This is the first time I've felt like you were mentally in a place where this was something you could hear.” 

“Mm,” replied Edward, clearly chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. 

“Edward, I didn't _want_ to keep it from you. Things were just complicated,” he said, shifting his weight. “On Friday night, right after I received this news, I was too angry at you to want to share. And then Saturday you were avoiding me, and then Sunday we talked about all of this – and I had no desire to make you feel even worse than you did by placing my problems on your shoulders. Not until you were feeling better.” 

“Hypocrite,” said Ed, softly. “You'd be mad at me if I had done the same thing.” 

Roy flinched. It wasn't precisely true, but close enough. 

“The difference between your situation in these past few days and mine, is that you had no intention of telling me about your problems, ever. I, however, entirely planned to do so, when the situation was right. I wanted to share this with you, very much. But you were hurting,” said Roy, voice little more than a murmur, hand up against the bars, “and when you're hurting, all I want to do is help. Would telling you three days earlier have made anything better?” 

Ed sighed and said: 

“I guess not.” He paused, collecting his words. “It just hurts to find out about this bullshit, you know? It makes me fuckin' _angry_ ,” he growled, eyes aflame, “but just like with everything else that's been happening recently, I can't even _do_ anything about it. And that's frustrating as all hell. It makes me wanna break shit.” 

He understood even more deeply than Ed knew. 

“God, doesn't it?” Roy replied with a laugh. “And yet that's the way of politics. I stupidly chose a career in which I can rarely say what I mean, in which people are scrutinizing me constantly, waiting for the smallest misstep, and in which I will often have to wait years to see any progress at all.” 

That, for some reason, made Ed's sober expression fall away, replaced by something warmer. 

“In't that every job ever, though?” the man said, grinning. “When people get paid for work, I figure they aren't getting' paid to do the shit they're doing – usually that isn't so bad, even kinda fun. I figure they're gettin' paid to put up with all the shit they have to put up with.” 

Even just those few sentences lightened Roy's mood considerably. Sometimes, he was reminded without warning of exactly how brilliant his lover was: Edward's blunt insight had been a catalyst for changes in probably many hundreds of people's lives, even thousands, and this piece of it was no less true for its lighthearted delivery. 

“Well said,” Roy replied, laughing. “You always have a way of getting right to the heart of things, and a talent for making me feel better in the process.” 

“When I'm not makin you want to kill me, that is.” 

“Of course,” he said, with amusement, then paused, thinking. “I love you, you know,” he said, just to try it out. 

That provoked a furious blush in the blonde, much to Roy's amusement and much as he had expected. 

“You're such a fuckin sap,” Edward shot back, golden eyes wide above reddened cheeks, as if the general's declaration had startled him. “If you start writing me cute notes on the bathroom mirror or callin' me 'sweetheart' or some shit, we're breaking up.” 

The laugh with which Roy met his lover's threat was long and loud, freeing him from an unseen weight with the sheer force of its delight. 

“Edward Elric, you never fail to amaze me,” he said, remembering again what being in love felt like. 

The way Edward's surprise morphed into absolute confusion was almost painfully adorable. 

“Buh – what? I didn't do anything.” 

“Mm,” agreed Roy with a smile, letting his hand drift through the bars to twist a finger, gently, around one loose strand of Edward's unbound hair. 

* 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments are what motivate me to continue trying to tame this monster. If you liked, let me know!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Edit 7/6/14 -- So, my book is out! If you would like to read it (which I would LOVE) it is available [here](http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=CB_AHOBD)! It's only five bucks, and it'll make you happy! Thanks, everybody, for your continuing support. **
> 
> Hi guys!
> 
> I know this took a super long time, but it's approximately 250% better than it would have been if you had gotten it a month ago, so I hope you understand :) Also, I have gotten to use some of the past two months to get ahead in this story again, which I honestly hadn't done much of since... god, a year ago? But, good news! Everything is going well, I'm feeling energized and rejuvenated, and while I can't make any promises as to when the next chapter will be out, I _can_ promise that it _will_ be.
> 
> In other news, my BOOK should be out soon! I just got my author's copy yesterday, and it has cover art and stuff! It will be available digitally from ManLoveRomance Press (www.mlrpress.com) or also probably in the Kindle bookstore, for -- I'm guessing -- somewhere around five bucks. I'm a little vague on the details right now XD The title is _A History of Bad Decisions_ , and I'm writing under the pseudonym Claire Bonheur. So if you miss my porn, you know where to go! Also, they have lots of really good stories by people who are not me, and if you have a couple of extra bucks to spend on long-form, story-filled gay porn, you should definitely check them out! 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking with me through all of this. I hope to keep making it worth it :)

At eleven o'clock on Monday evening, Weimar heard the interview; it incited a bad mood in him that still had not dissipated by the time Weimar awoke that morning. It hung over him like a black fog the whole morning, as he ate his breakfast, attended his first meeting, stomped through he halls of headquarters on his way to his office. 

_How could this happen?_ he thought, the crease between his eyes deepening as he ignored a pair of soldiers who stopped to salute him. Even hours later, this still preoccupied him. _No, how could we **let** this happen?_ _I thought we had all of the news outlets in our pocket. How could we have missed this one particular station - and the fact that Mustang's team had a personal connection to their star reporter?_ He grunted, and clenched his thick fist around the handle of his briefcase hard enough to strangle it. 

_I love him,_ he heard, echoing through his memory - the boy had sounded so… no, surely that wasn't possible. Had Mustang truly indoctrinated Fullmetal so thoroughly? Weimar couldn't imagine choosing to stay with Mustang, after everything. Why? _What if you're wrong?_

He tore viciously through the thought. He wasn't wrong. 

_You've heard all of the witnesses, you **know** what that man does to him. No sane person would ever agree to be the victim of such things. If he has, in fact, agreed, that's just further sign that he is mentally unstable, and unfit to make his own decisions. _

__

And yet, the listening public probably would not be canny enough to make the distinction between a man making a choice and a man _appearing_ to make a choice. Besides, no matter what Fullmetal had done, the boy was still so young and impressionable - and if Mustang had been grooming him from a young age to think that was normal… 

The thought set his blood on fire. 

He scowled at the ground, at the toes of his perfectly polished shoes. His briefcase swung with a purpose beside him. 

The arrival of his office door in front of him interrupted Weimar's cascading thoughts: keeping the rage inside, he slammed the door to his outer offices open. No fewer than three young officers and one secretary jumped at the noise, throwing terrified glances in his direction. His subordinates - all male, he noted, except for the secretary - were gathered around the woman's desk. They all flushed as Weimar approached. 

"Did I interrupt something?" he asked, raising his thick eyebrows. His tone was not amused. "I am _so_ sorry, do continue," he said, with as much venom as he could muster. 

One of the officers swallowed nervously. 

"I'm so sorry, sir," the man said, bowing. "We were just getting to know our new co-worker here -" 

"I don't give a damn what you were doing," Weimar growled. "With this much work to do and the invasion of a country on our hands, I don't expect to come in to the office at ten o'clock to find you _loitering_ around the secretary's desk. I expect to find you hard at work, nearly silently, or you can find someone else to authorize your paychecks. Get back to work," he snapped; looking like whipped dogs, they turned tail and fled back to their own workspaces. 

Weimar turned back to his secretary, and was right on the verge of giving her the same kind of verbal admonition, when he realized that the woman who sat in front of him was not the person he expected. Normally, Eliza occupied that desk, all wide smiles and curly, blonde hair; this _other_ woman had straight red hair, with pale blue eyes and a dainty nose. 

"And who are _you_?" he asked, his tone just as clipped as it had been with the officers. He could have read the name-tag she wore, but that wouldn't have served the same purpose. 

"Sir?" she asked, a quaver in her voice, smiling nervously as if she thought he might be joking. "I'm your temporary receptionist. Marielle, remember? We met yesterday. Eliza is taking her vacation days this week." 

Now that she mentioned it, he did vaguely remember something of the sort; the thought irritated him further. What business did his secretary have taking her vacation days when everything they had been working for could collapse at the drop of a pin, to leave him with someone whose trustworthiness was uncertain? New girls were of no use to him at all, especially at such a late hour in so many of his plans. 

"Mm," Weimar responded, narrowing his eyes at her. "I suppose that if you have to be here, then you have to be here. But don't get in my way, don't ask any questions, and don't get yourself in any trouble. In fact, I think it would be best if you kept talking to a minimum." She looked taken-aback by his bluntness; the sight was somehow satisfying. "But you know what you can do? Bring me a coffee," he said, just to give her something to do. She sat there in blank silence, and for a moment he wondered if she was stupid - but after two beats, then a third, he realized that this was not, in fact, his usual secretary, and she didn't know his coffee preferences off the top of her head. He was going to have to actually tell her what he wanted. "Black. One sugar. Hotter than the devil's pitchfork. The percolator is that way," he intoned, pointing in the direction in question. "You _do_ know how to use a percolator, don't you?" he added, in a tone of utmost derision. 

She was on her feet in a snap. 

"Yes, sir! Of course, sir. It'll be there right away," she said, then hurried in the direction he pointed. Weimar sighed and took the satisfaction of rolling his eyes for just a moment before turning to his own inner office and stomping over in that direction. Now was _not_ the time for his secretary to start requesting time off, nor for personnel to start granting it. He was going to have to have a word or two with all of them. 

He had barely had time to settle down at his giant desk and get his papers from the meeting arranged properly in front of him before she returned with a steaming pot and a cup on the tray in her hands. 

"I thought I would just go ahead and bring you the whole pot," the woman - Amelia? - said, pinking faintly at the cheeks as she took it across the floor to set it on his desk. His opinion of her became marginally more charitable: perhaps she wasn't such a bleeding idiot after all. "Late night?" she asked sympathetically, pouring him a cup and adding one cube from the sugar bowl. 

He didn't really know what business it was of hers, but he answered her anyway: he was many things, but he wasn't rude. 

"Very," he replied, without going into any particular detail. "Thank you for the coffee," he added, brusquely, so as to make it unavoidably clear that she wasn't wanted there. 

She, however, seemed not to get the hint. Instead, she walked around to the other side of the table to stand right behind him. 

"You seem tense," she murmured. "I can help you with that, if you want," she said, as if she were asking permission, although it shortly became evident that she was not, because he didn't even get a chance to refuse before feeling a hand on either shoulder. 

The unexpected touch made him tense up, but his protest was shortly stolen from him by the deft caress of her fingers - moving across skin, gently pressing into muscles. 

"How does that feel?" she asked, her voice no louder than a murmur. Her thumbs, twin points of pleasure, dug in on either side of his spine, from mid-shoulders all the way up to the base of his skull. He couldn't help but groan, despite the strangeness of it all: he was not the sort of man to invite touch from any person other than his wife. Still, he found that he didn't mind as much as he thought he would. 

"Very nice," he murmured, unable to manage any more than that. She hummed a pleased noise and continued on until the muscles in his shoulders felt like jelly and the frantic anxiety that had held him in its grip had loosened as well. Then, she moved on to his shoulders, kneading the trapezius in slow, rolling motions, stroking along the grain of the muscle, each squeeze slow and utterly deliberate. 

Once finished, she took her hands off of his shoulders and took a step around the side of the chair, so she could look at him properly. 

"There. Better?" she said, a strange tone to her voice that he didn't recognize. 

"Much. Thank you," he said, before turning his eyes back to his desk, with all of the papers on top of it. He really didn't know what to say to her after that: although it had been good, it had also been _strange_ in some way that he couldn't quite put words to. He tugged at his collar: the cloth seemed suddenly too tight. 

"Good," she replied: but rather than leaving, she just stood there for a moment as if she hadn't decided what to do. When he finally looked up and over at her, he found that her eyes were half-lidded, so that she could look over at him through her thick lashes. "If you need anything else, you just let me know, okay?" she said, smiling. He frowned back at her. Her whole demeanor, her attitude confused him greatly. She was being unusually helpful: perhaps she was trying to ingratiate herself with him. Perhaps she wanted this temporary job position to become permanent. In the world of politics, Weimar had learned early, nobody nobody was so helpful unless they wanted something from you. 

"Mm," he replied, unsure what else to say. "Now, get back out there and do whatever it is that you secretaries do." 

"With pleasure, sir," she said, giving him another one of those smiles that made him distinctly uncomfortable. She turned to walk out, and he stared blankly after her, wondering if he would ever manage to unravel the depths of the mystery called "woman." 

He watched the back of the door for a good several minutes, trying to work this out. Was she, perhaps, _flirting_ with him? Was that what the shoulder massage had been about? Admittedly, it made a lot more sense than her just doing it to gain his favor professionally. Massages were not exactly a tried-and-true way to foment rapport with superior officers. 

Not another one. He sighed, rubbing his hand across his eyes, then moving down to stroke his neck. He didn't know what they thought they would get out of flirting with him. He was a married man, after all. Frustration began to replace his confusion once again: better to think of other things. He shook himself from the trance of his thought to turn his focus back to more productive avenues. 

A blank sheet of paper with the Amestrian Army letterhead sat in front of him, he remembered; he turned his stare back down to the pure whiteness, and considered what he was going to do. Not about the woman - he would let that sort itself out, and she would probably be gone in a few days, anyway. About Mustang. 

Clearly, the man was smarter than Weimar had given him credit for. Mustang had found the perfect way to drum up sympathy for his cause: Fullmetal's interview seemed to have been incredibly well-received, at least, if the number of re-plays it had garnered were any measure. And the news hadn't been limited to the one station, either. After listening to the program, he had flipped through the other channels, spending a few minutes on each. Even in that brief time, he had heard several other news personalities discussing the interview, debating it, picking over someone else's news like carrion birds. It had played twice since its original airing, and with all of the other stations talking about it, by the end of the day, everybody in Central with a radio would probably have heard of it. 

Obviously, he had to stop all of this sewage at the source, if he wanted the playing field to remain level. The question was, how? Which source? Should he target the ones who produced the lies - Fullmetal and Mustang - or… 

Of course. The ones who distributed it. Mustang could tell all the lies he wanted, but it wouldn't matter if nobody could hear them. If something should, perhaps, happen to the Fresh Air program - or even the whole 101.1 radio station - then perhaps, other media outlets might balk at playing the same kind of sympathetic vomit that the unfortunately credulous public seemed to enjoy so much. 

In the end, all Weimar had to do was to take away the soapbox from which Mustang and his boy were preaching. You can speak without an audience, but it won't make any difference. 

He was going to take Mustang down, and if some other liberal bastards had to go down on the way - well then, so be it. 

His spine went straight as a rod, and he slid his typewriter over from the side of his desk to the center, then put the paper in and turned the spool until it was in its proper position. He stared at it for only a bare second before putting his fingers to the keys and beginning. Each slow, precise stroke added a press of crisp black ink to the thick linen paper, each new character added after a great deal of thought. 

_To Alles Schumacher, Minister of Finance and the Head of the Treasury,_ he began, formally, then paused to compose the rest in his mind; in a moment, he continued. 

_Through my investigations, it has come to my attention that the 101.1 radio station has been engaged in tax evasion, fraud, and other such unsavory acts for a number of years. I would be much obliged if you would open a formal investigation into the topic. Please reply by courier as soon as possible._

__

_Yours,_

_General Mikhael Weimar_

* 

"Back so soon?" Madame Christmas asked, lips moving around the cigarette that burned steadily in her mouth. Roy smiled, looking around his mother's bedroom. Although it had been years since he had had cause to visit this place, it was just as he remembered it: indulgent, like the woman herself, and yet somehow also sparse, like she had taken up residence there only for the weekend but had bought the best of everything to accompany her while she was. The great four-poster bed with the red canopy, nearly overflowing with pillows; the mahogany nightstand, empty; the huge bookcase, covered in hand-carved vines and flowers, bearing only a few books on one shelf and a state-of-the-art radio on another. On the left half of the room sat a small cocktail table with a plush armchair on either side. She occupied one, her elbow up on the table; the other was empty. He smelled the heavy staleness of old smoke beneath the strong muskiness of the fresh. 

Roy sat down on the large, thickly padded armchair, across the table from his mother. She plucked her cigarette from her mouth to blow a plume of smoke into the room. She looked almost impossibly comfortable, as if she had somehow merged with her thick armchair. A full glass of wine and a half-empty bottle of it sat on the table between them. 

"Of course," Roy replied, smiling: he shifted to get comfortable, crossing his legs and leaning into the soft luxury of the cushioned back. "I can never get enough of my dear mother," he said, and she snorted: she saw right through him, like she always had. "Also, my own interview is coming on the radio tonight. I wanted to listen to it in company." 

When she smiled, she set her cigarette back between her molars, seemingly not caring a whit that she was grinding the filter to pieces. Really, between her and all of the other smokers who lived in or passed through this place, it was a miracle that Roy had never picked up the habit. 

"Ah, yes. Roy's lonely, so he comes lookin' for company with his mama?" she asked, deeply amused. "What, don't know what to do with yourself now that your lover-boy's in jail?" 

Roy winced - that particular barb had perhaps hit a bit too close to home. He elected not to respond to that. 

"So, you know about that already," he said with half a laugh. He had planned at first to tell her, but he should have known that she would already have picked up that little piece of news. "Guess nothing gets by you for too long." 

"Sure doesn't," she said, taking a long drag of her cigarette and holding it for five seconds of awkward silence before exhaling. "That's what you pay me for, after all," she said, smile sharp. 

"Very true," Roy said. He eyed her glass of wine with a faint longing: she caught it, but didn't offer him any. "When did you find out?" 

"Oh, this morning," she said. "Your boy-toy's a bit of a troublemaker, in't he?" 

Roy snorted a laugh. 

"Well, if that isn't the understatement of the century," he said, grinning widely. "Edward is a trouble magnet. He can't go anywhere without stirring up some kind of mischief." 

"Hm. That's an inconvenient habit for a politician's lover," she said neutrally, a statement of fact rather than a judgment. Roy shrugged. 

"I suppose it is, a bit." 

She gave a languid shrug. 

"Don't get me wrong, kid. I'm not judging. I know better'n most that there ain't nobody on this green earth who ever got to choose who they were in love with." 

The way she said this was stark and matter-of-fact, and her black eyes betrayed none of her thoughts, but he couldn't help but wonder - not for the first time - what had made her such an expert on the subject, and if she had ever been in love. For all the time he had been old enough to be cognizant of such things, she had been alone: no lovers, that he knew of, no boyfriends or romantic interests. He wondered if sheever got lonely. 

Somehow, he doubted it. She just wasn't that kind of woman. 

"True," he said, with a chuckle. "But even if I could choose, I wouldn't do anything any differently. His good qualities far outweigh the more inconvenient ones." 

"Is that so?" she asked, giving him a sharp look, then a thin smile. "Well, I suppose that's good." Smoke wafted from her mouth as she spoke, and when she finished, she let all the rest of it out in one smooth breath. "How's he doing?" 

"Oh, not bad," Roy said. "Actually, much better than I expected. He always does better when he has a plan, some kind of goal to work towards." His mother raised an eyebrow in a silent question; Roy took a deep breath and began to explain the plan. He tried to keep his tone nonchalant, as if he weren't worried at all, and as he spoke reminded himself that Edward could take care of himself just fine. She listened, her eyes focused on some distant, unseen object. 

He could take care of himself, and had for years: but the problem was that this plan hinged on Edward getting attacked, which could possibly leave the young man with a genuine injury, if he wasn't careful. That was the very last thing that either of them wanted. 

Or maybe… 

Without warning, a memory surfaced: of Edward, drowned by his clothes, with bags under his eyes and a purple bruise on the side of his face. Edward, earning the name of the Red Devil, seeking out pain and adrenaline in Central's seediest areas. Edward, needing that thrill, that release, so badly that he was willing to put his life in danger to get it. 

In that moment, a startling flash of clarity came to the general. Maybe, subconsciously, this plan of Edward's was actually _designed_ to get him hurt, to let him fight and take everything that they could give until the urges that tore at him were sated. Mustang almost hadn't recognized the behavior, because it had been so long since he had seen it: over the course of their relationship, Ed had gotten quite good at just _asking_ for assistance when he felt those urges, so he hadn't needed to go out and do anything stupid. That assault, though, had gotten into Edward's head in ways that Roy had only just barely begun to understand. He didn't want to be the person that everyone was accusing him of being, the person who had incited so much hatred, but he couldn't get rid of those underlying needs. He couldn't ask Roy to do it safely, so those desires manifested through this, a socially acceptable way to allow himself to fill those needs. 

Chances were high that the other man wasn't even doing it on purpose, that he didn't even _know_ what he was doing, which just made the whole thing more complicated. 

God, that man was too complicated for his own good. 

Madame Christmas didn't utter a word until the general had finished. 

"Mm," she said said, her gaze turning from distant to immediate, eagle-eyed; she was very good at reading her son. "You say that he's doing well, but then you go and act like you're lying. It's obvious that you're worried," she said, finally taking her cigarette out of her mouth and crushing it into the glass ashtray on the table, to put out the last sputtering remnants of its light. 

"Worried?" A pause: was he? "I suppose I am," he said, letting out a long breath. She picked up the glass of wine and put it to her lips: her dark lipstick left a crescent mark around the rim. "He's just… This reminds me quite a bit of some of the reckless behaviors he has indulged in in the past. He has a tendency to go out of control if there's not somebody there to stop him." 

And suddenly, then, Roy found that he wanted what Edward wanted just as much: wanted to take care of the younger man, to give him what he needed, to help him fulfill those desires in a healthy way. Though his sudden urge was not solely for altruistic reasons: The general's own life had been so frustrating, recently. He had been so powerless, relying on the help of those around him, unable to make any of the changes he wanted to make, or even stop terrible things from happening. 

It was like Ishbal, all over again. _In the end, everything comes back to Ishbal,_ he thought, with some dire amusement. 

It was exactly this kind of helplessness that the General found intolerable. In the end, his play had developed as a way to correct this problem, to make himself feel like he was in control again. And now, as much as he ever had, he wanted to be given that power, to be able to mete out reward and punishment as deserved - he wanted to see Edward moaning in pleasure on his knees, mouth open and drooling around a ball gag as Roy took a cane to his perfect, curved ass - 

And yet, he couldn't. Not then, not yet. Regardless of what either of them wanted, Edward was not in any kind of mental state to be able to receive such attention in anywhere near the spirit in which it was meant. Maybe someday soon, he added silently, hope springing eternal - but in the meantime, the best he could do was probably just to be a pillar of support for his younger lover. 

"I see," Madame Christmas replied after a long moment of thought, her frown creasing her brow. Then, her lips bent up into a smile. "I take it that normally, _you're_ the one who helps control these reckless tendencies -" she said this so suggestively that Roy groaned; he really hated having a mother who understood such things so well "- but now, with all the trouble that's come up recently, you haven't been able to do that." 

He really should just resign himself to the fact that his mother was psychic, and also that she was going to be meddling in his sex life for the rest of his existence. With a wry smile that may have been close cousin to a grimace, he replied. 

"…Without going too far into the sordid details, yes," he said, adjusting himself in his chair, his gaze straying across everything in the room except for his mother's face. "Edward is…" He sighed, and scrubbed a hand across his eyes, raking his fingers back through his dark bangs. "I know he can take care of himself, but I just worry that one of these days, he's going to run too close to the edge and something really bad is going to happen to him. He never _thinks_ before he does things." Roy slumped into his chair, letting his elbows on the armrests take his weight. 

She considered his words, swishing her merlot around in her broad-bowled wine glass for a few moments before taking another long drink. 

"Well, if he's been stuck in jail for the past, eh, twenty or so hours," she finally said, setting her glass down on the table, "then he's probably spent a lot of time thinkin' about it, huh?" 

Roy's brow wrinkled as he considered this. After a long moment, he finally replied. 

"I suppose that's true," he said, sounding perhaps a bit more pensive than he had intended. 

"You said just a second ago that he could take care of himself, and you've said before that he can beat your sorry ass in a fight. So stop worrying about it, you idiot," said Madame Christmas, her voice raspy as it was forceful. "Let him help you however he's gonna. He might surprise you." She paused and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bra; Roy found himself so caught off-guard by her comment that he had nothing to say. "Sometimes, in order to make somebody trust you, you gotta trust them first," she said, drawing a cigarette from its pack and picking up her lighter from where it lay next to her on the table. 

He knew that this was true. However, that didn't really stop him from getting defensive. 

"I _do_ trust him," Roy replied, indignant. He did, most of the time, about most things. Some of the time, at least. In certain ways, there was nobody he trusted more. "I don't know where you got the impression that I didn't." 

She snorted a laugh, and flicked the lighter on: flame sputtered to life out of the end, and she lit her next cancer stick with it. 

"If you trust him, then stop worrying," she declared, like that was the end of that. "Got it, kiddo?" He couldn't help but give a soft laugh, resigned. 

"Yes, mother," he replied, with a bit of a smile: she made it sound so simple. Really, it should be. He could let himself trust his brilliant young lover, for both of their sakes. 

"Good," she declared, taking a draw from her cigarette. "Then we can finally move on to other business." It took Roy a moment to remember what "other business" had brought him there. "What time is your interview playing?" 

"Six o'clock," Roy replied. He pulled out his pocket-watch - it read five fifty-three. Not long now. "Same as Edward's was." 

"Well, then," she said, getting to her feet in one long, ponderous movement, "How about I deal with my infernal mess of a radio and you go find yourself a glass to share some of this wine." Thank god: he thought she'd never offer. "You need it more than I do." 

"Thanks for everything, Madame," he said, as he followed suit. 

"Eh, don't mention it. Wouldn't do to get people thinking I'm nice or anything, now would it?" she said, teeth bared in a smile. 

"Of course not," Roy murmured, walking to the door. "What would the world come to, then?" 

* 

For a number of reasons, the Central Headquarters record room was the very last place that Hawkeye went on her search. One reason was because she was almost one hundred percent certain that said record room would have been one of the first places in which Weimar's team would have replaced the document she was looking for: the fake one would be useless to her. 

The more important reason was that after finally deciding to take a trip there, she found that she no longer needed to continue her search. 

She had stepped into the Records lobby, only to see one Miss Schiezka sitting at the desk in front of the second door, abusing her typewriter with the force of each keystroke as she put something to paper, an intense look on her face. 

And that was when the realization - epiphany, even - dawned on Hawkeye. She stood there and just stared at the girl for a moment as thoughts scrolled through her head. Just as quickly, her bewilderment was gone, and she crossed the floor to stand in front of the other woman's desk. Schiezka looked up at her in surprise as the other woman came to a stop before her, as if she had forgotten that other people existed. 

"Oh, Lieutenant Hawkeye - sorry, Major," she apologized hastily. "It's nice to see you again. What brings you over to my end of the building, for once? 

"…Schiezka," Hawkeye began, without prelude. "You wouldn't happen to have read the Justice Department's crime report for this year, would you?" 

"Well… yes, I have. Why?" she asked, a question in her eyes. 

* 

In the solitude of the prison, Edward finally had the time and the distance to think, to calm himself. The radio he had requested hummed softly in the background, a comforting murmur of human conversation that served as a background over which his thoughts ran incessantly. He turned the plan over in his mind, examined it from every angle, thought of contingency plans and possibilities. When he tired of that, his mind would slip back to alchemy, and he allowed himself to get lost in the maze of numbers and chemicals and reactions that made up such a key part of his life, and the universe at large. 

Originally, he had hoped to get to write out some notes in all of this forced free time, but when he had asked for some chalk, or at least a notebook and pencil, his requests had been met with derision. The guard laughed, saying that he probably wanted them so he could draw transmutation circles: Ed had replied that of _course_ he wanted the stuff to draw transmutation circles, what else would he want them for? This was apparently the wrong answer, because after that, no amount of telling the man that he was purely going to be working with theory was going to get him any of the things he wanted. 

Ed could have kicked himself. Maybe if he had just said that he had wanted them to fucking write poetry or something, they would have given him some. They were just afraid he was going to use his alchemy to escape. That was extra stupid, because if Ed had wanted to escape he would have been a million kinds of out of there by then. He didn't need fucking _chalk_ to transmute his way out of this place: he could have just clapped and made a hole in the wall. 

He told them as much, which just resulted in a large, grumpy-looking guard coming in to hold him by the shoulders while the warden manacled his hands together, separated by a metal bar, so he couldn't possibly clap. He had whined and complained like a champion, but hadn't fought it, because he was going to be a model fucking prisoner until they gave him a damn good reason not to be. 

Now, lying bored on his bed with his hands mostly immobilized, he was almost regretting his noble decision to come to jail like a good little boy. He sighed and shifted around on his back, trying in vain to get comfortable. The thing under his head was a pathetic, skinny excuse for a pillow, and he couldn't even put his hands under it to fluff it up. 

At least they didn't take his radio away. He glanced at the clock through the front bars of his cell: it read 5:36. _Fresh Air_ came on at six, and tonight they would be airing Roy's interview. He wondered what the man had planned. Would any of it be enough? Would they both be sent to prison for what they had done, in the end? 

The thought of Roy - Roy, who had been nothing but understanding towards him, nothing but supportive and fucking nice even when he was being a bastard - being punished because of _him_ left a bad taste in his mouth. 

But he still had 

other tastes 

in his mouth, too. 

He could still remember how the man's fingers had felt against his tongue, how his eyes had widened in surprise and then narrowed in arousal as Ed had sucked on each digit, swept his tongue up and down them, locked gazes with his lover as he worked them, worshiping them - 

_(you suck his dick good)_

One memory interrupted, supplanted the other. Ed shivered, hot and cold both at once, arousal blending and swirling into the nausea in his stomach. 

_Yes,_ thought Edward, fiercely. _I do. You got a fuckin problem with that?_

The voices in his head didn't reply: they usually didn't, when he challenged them head-on. They didn't have to. He knew what they were going to say. 

Ed groaned and curled up on his mattress, the noise half one of desire and half one of distress. 

Despite conscious and unconscious reservations, whatever he might be thinking, his body seemed once again capable of lust. The twinge he felt at his groin was proof enough of this. He wasn't sure whether or not he was surprised at the speed at which he seemed to be recovering. 

_(because you're a whore)_

_(just like you like it)_

__

A wash of memories accompanied the words, as indistinct and dissolute as watercolor, and yet also so powerful. 

**_No_** _, goddammit._ He forced the memories away, shoving them under a current of other images, happier images. He would _not_ let this shit get the better of him. His and Roy's relationship was founded largely on mind-breakingly good sex, and he didn't know what would happen to them if that got taken away. If he let those sons of bitches fuck him up enough that it ruined his relationship with Roy, then they would win. They would have managed to teach him a lesson, like they wanted to. They would have managed to hurt him, like they wanted to. 

Fuck that. Fuck _them._ The faster he got the hell over this, the better. Those guys were monsters, and he would kick their asses if he ever saw them again. They wouldn't even know what had hit them. 

Right in that moment, he couldn't do that - but he could engage in his own quiet act of rebellion. 

Lying there on his bed, he shifted onto his back, and brought his manacled arms to his front, letting them slide, down, along his body. Through force of will he kept his mind clear, focused on the _sensation of it_ and not at all on the sparks of shame that the action struck in him. 

_(you like coming with a -)_

_Shut **up**!_

The voice didn't continue, but Edward's hands did. He passed across his stomach without stopping, shivered and sucked in breath as the warmth of his left hand and chill of his right, the smooth shock of the chains, passed his belt, continued down to the crotch of his pants. 

There was no hardness at the meeting of his thighs: not yet, but maybe he could change that. He let his hand rest lightly there, tried to slow the pounding of his heart, so strong he could hear the rush of it in his ears. It was just a hand, not a mortal sin, he reminded himself - he waited there for something extraordinary to happen, for God to strike him down, but no such thing occurred. After pausing, controlling his breathing, for a minute or two, he even managed to get his nausea under control. He began to move his hand, just slightly, a bit of movement to get himself going. Still, nothing. 

So, he turned his thoughts elsewhere. He thought of Roy, on that first night they had actually had sex: the man's hands on him in the shower, massaging him, soothing the tension out of him; the man's voice, purring lowly, then growling, saying things that made Ed's brain stop short. 

In the present moment, in the cold, impersonal space of the holding cell, Edward felt himself begin to react. He hissed in a breath - _Alright, that's it, think about Mustang's goddamn smirk, his confidence, the way he looks at you when you're wearing those leather pants -_ and applied a bit of pressure, _just_ a bit, to the growing tent in his pants. 

Yes, that was good - that felt nice. He drowned out the voices in his head with memories of his lover's words: _you're beautiful - this is something we do **for** each other, not **to** each other - I love being able to take your burdens from you. _

His hand applied more pressure, and shocks of pleasure shot to his core. Yes. _God_ , yes. 

More memories came: _the way he fucks you with his eyes when you're on your back for him, and he's still perfectly put together, every inch a young god in that beautiful uniform, never even having to touch you for you to feel him all over._

The groan that passed his lips then actually surprised him: he began to rub at his crotch in little circles, keeping it light, perhaps tentative, but firm enough that he could actually enjoy the sensations. A heady feeling, the sharp delight of getting away with something, began to fill him. He didn't know whether this was a response to jerking off somewhat in public - the front of his jail cell was, after all, just a series of bars, even if there was no-one to see him - ore to the fact that he was touching himself at all, but it didn't particularly matter. 

He kept his hand in the area he knew would be safe - just on the shaft of his now-hardened cock, rubbing all the way along its length through his pants, not yet daring to move onto territory that a stranger's hand had violated. There had been a finger on his nipple, a hand brushing across his entrance and his testicles, and - 

_Stop. You're not **thinking** about that._

__

Roy's hand on him, stroking him - Roy's face as a rock of Edward's hips sent him over the edge - 

_Now's as good a time as any._

Ed took a deep breath and unzipped the front of his pants. With only a minimum of adjustment, he got his cock out through the fly of his boxers. 

And there it was: his erection, naked to the air. Edward stared at it as if it were a stranger for a long moment - _did it always look so strange, so foreign?_ He pushed those thoughts aside, forcing himself to continue. 

Slowly, testing, he brushed the tips of his fingers up the side of his length, letting his thumb swipe over the head. He groaned again, barely even hearing his own noises as he wrapped his hand around his length. The memory of Roy's voice spread through him. 

_(I'm going to make you come harder than you've ever come in your life, and then I'm going to do it again -)_

The manacles dug into his wrists, and without thinking about it he adjusted his position to make the metal cut deeper, to sharpen both his pain and his pleasure - 

_(gonna hurt you, just like you want it)_

_(you love coming with a cock up your ass)_

_(whore)_

This time, he heard the words in Roy's voice, full of contempt and disgust. The world spun around him in a sickness of motion, and he jerked his hand away from his rapidly softening cock. 

What the _fuck_ did he think he was doing? Proving all of them right? Showing them he was so much of a cockslut that he couldn't even spend a couple hours by himself without shoving his hand down his pants? 

_No, you're showing them they didn't ruin you,_ the rational part of his thoughts reminded him. 

But his cock stayed stubbornly soft, and his hands put it back in his pants without his brain even really having a say. He put his hands up behind his head, and made himself as comfortable as he could get: the manacles were suddenly altogether too heavy, too inescapably present. 

A crackle of the radio interrupted his thoughts, because the words that came after were spoken in a familiar voice. 

_"I'm Rebecca Daniels, and this is Fresh Air." _ Edward suddenly found himself rearranging his thoughts; he had actually forgotten about the interview, about what was coming.He struggled to get his brain back in the right place as the woman continued. " _Tonight, we have an interview with one of the country's great movers and shakers, General Roy Mustang, to talk about the scandal surrounding him and the sudden discovery of his relationship with the former Fullmetal Alchemist. Last night, Fresh Air played an interview with Edward Elric himself, to get his perspective on the whole affair." _

He took deep breaths, directed his attention away from what he had just been doing and back to the present. Despite what the dark corners of his brain were telling him, their situation might actually be improving - and he had helped with that, he reminded himself. He had heard his interview play twice in the time he had spent in jail, and each time it got easier to hear. 

_"The station received many calls from listeners who had strong opinions on the case, ranging from complete support to cries that the General be jailed immediately and Edward be institutionalized."_

__

Calls from listeners? For some reason, that hadn't even occurred to him. 

" _One of our most impassioned callers said this:_

_'I was almost moved to tears when I heard the interview.'"_ This voice belonged to a woman much older than Ms. Daniels, although it was also somehow familiar. _"'I've met the Fullmetal Alchemist. He's been coming into my deli regularly for the past several years. He once saved me from a maniac who was trying to rob me.'"_

A grin split Edward's face as he listened, his bad mood evaporating as she spoke. Mrs. Stillson had called in? Well, wasn't that just a nice surprise. Mrs. Stillson, he had discovered after he had kicked the robber's ass and escorted the elderly widow back to her shop, made the best damn sandwich he'd ever laid lips on. She was sharp, too, and surprisingly funny, and he enjoyed their conversations when they had them. He would have to do something nice for her sometime. 

_"'Edward is a painfully honest young man. I don't think he'd say things like the things he said on the radio unless he meant them - and before you say it, I don't think that **anybody** could make him do anything he didn't want to do. He's stubborn and headstrong and not the kind of person you can sweet talk or manipulate. He's a good boy, with good intentions, and he wouldn't go through all of this for someone he didn't really care about. I think that everybody should stop making assumptions about things they don't know anything about, and just leave those two alone." _

The next person wasn't so kind. He claimed to have an advanced degree in psychiatry, and to have done years of study on "the homosexuals," none of which gave Edward any faith in his analysis. 

_"'I think that homosexual liaisons of the kind that General Mustang has been having with the boy destabilize the country. The fact that we have become by and large tolerant of such things is an indicator of a weakening of public morality and a devaluing of tradition and family that I think could ruin the state, if not properly kept in check. It's impossible for two men to be in love, and that's just scientific fact. However, both men clearly suffer from homo-erotic desires and should be evaluated psychologically. If I were to hazard a guess as to the cause of this disease, I might suggest that neither of them had strong father figures in their lives, as this has been scientifically proved to cause the homosexual affliction.'_ " 

_Hohenheim has **nothing to fucking do with this**. _ Ed was on his feet in just an instant, leg stretched out to kick the wall in a fury. His mother and Granny Pinako and Teacher had been the best and strongest parent figures he could possibly have asked for. He kicked the wall again, and felt briefly better when he saw a thick crack spiderweb its way up the stone. 

_"'As for the sexual sadism and masochism, only severe trauma at a young age could cause those particular neuroses. Probably repeated trauma, if my guesses are correct. It is likely incurable at this age, but there is always a chance that it is not. I say we should get both of them into treatment as soon as possible to see if we can provide any restoration of their mental states - for their own good.'"_

The rage turned to stone in Edward's stomach. He _hadn't_ had a father in his life. Neither had Roy, apparently: he'd been raised by his mother in a brothel full of women. And now that he thought about it, they both _had_ been repeatedly traumatized at a young age, and _shit_ , everything the man was saying was _true,_ he was probably _right_ , they _were_ fucked up, they - 

_Goddammit, Elric. Even if your kinks **did** have something to do with your traumas - and maybe they do, who the hell knows why anybody does anything in this crazy-ass world - those traumas are undeniably parts of both of you that you can't get rid of, and so are your kinks. This stupid goddamn amateur psychologist is just afraid of you and what you're doing. When have you ever let what other people thought bother you before? Why the fuck are you starting now? _

Then, another voice came on the radio: in the fog of his rage, the only part Edward really caught was _" never thought about it that way before."'_ He listened a little bit closer to the next person, who didn't really seem to be on board with everything, but who said that _"as long as they've both agreed to it and they're not hurting anybody, I don't see what business it is of ours"_ just the same. By the time Rebecca Daniels spoke again, Edward had returned to sit on his bed, feet on the floor, and his breathing had begun to even out once more. 

_"In case you're just tuning in, those were many interesting opinions from a wide array of our listeners about the interview with Edward Elric. We received hundreds of calls in the day since it first played, and many of the ones we did not have time to play were just as articulate as the ones we did air._

_But some news that our reporters discovered sheds some new light onto the affair._ " Ed frowned: what could they be referring to? _"It seems that this morning, sometime between the hours of ten and eleven o'clock, four men were put under arrest for sexually assaulting and attempting to rape Edward Elric on Friday night."_

Edward froze, utterly unable to process those words. They echoed through the cavern of his skull, ringing, and repeating, and repeating and repeating, until finally, they clicked, and - 

_God, everybody knows now - I can't hide it anymore, not ever again._

__

It was one thing to know that at some undefined point in the future, he was going to have to testify against his attackers in court. It was quite another to hear his moment of shame brought up as news on a show that thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people were listening to _right at that very moment._

__

Did Roy tell her? No, he wouldn't have. He didn't even tell _Al,_ he wouldn't have told some strange lady. So how the hell did she find out? 

_She's a reporter,_ another part of him answered back, caustic. _Of course she can find out shit like this. That's her job. You were stupid if you thought you could keep it hidden._

_"...appears to have been a direct reaction to the article printed in the Central Times on Friday. Each man has confessed his crime. The men were members of the Amestrian military: Private First Class Thomas Jeffreys, Corporal Gregory Asel, Sergeant Mace Abbott, and Private First Class Avery Colton. Preliminary evidence suggests that it was a hate crime, perpetrated against him for the crime of his sexual interests."_ The woman's voice became hard, cutting, below the velvet surface: Edward got the impression of barely suppressed rage. _"And yet, the journalist who has been throwing these accusations around, Guy Harriet of the Central Times, has yet to be taken to task for his injurious gossip-mongering: instead, Edward Elric himself is in jail. In our interview, General Roy Mustang spoke about the incident that led to his incarceration."_

Roy's voice was smooth and calm as he related the incident. Edward still sat, muscles locked into place. 

_"'Well, Edward has always been rather - impetuous, shall we say. After that grievous invasion of our privacy that was printed in the papers on Friday morning, he decided he was going to go tell the man what he thought of him, to tell the man to back off. But when he got there, Harriet opened the conversation by calling Edward a whore, which he didn't take well, as one might imagine. The man followed that up by leveling the accusations from his articles at me again, but verbally, then accused Edward of getting his position within the military by letting himself be... used, physically, first by me, and then by the rest of the military establishment. The more heated their conversation grew, the angrier Edward became, until he finally lost his cool and attacked the man.'"_

_"'I'm very sorry to hear what happened,"_ Rebecca said, and she sounded it. "However, assault is still illegal." 

_"'So is slander, and invasion of privacy,"_ Roy replied, his voice cold: it took on the full force of his authority, then. _"Article 17 of the Amestrian rights code states that 'No civilian person or institution shall subject any other to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.'"_ Roy paused, giving the quote time to sink in. _"'In addition, assault law contains a provision protecting the accused when another reasonable person would have done the same thing. I think that holds true in this situation. So, I wonder: why is Edward in jail while Harriet walks free?'"_

Ed's hands clenched, digging his nails into his knees. He could barely bring himself to listen to the interview; his mind was back, still, focused on the revelation of his shame. 

_Everybody knows, now,_ he thought, throat tight and hot and painful, the light pricks of pain in his knees only a faint distraction. _Everybody will always know._

_"So tell us about your relationship with Edward."_

Roy's voice continued on, but Edward's mind was elsewhere: he picked only a few words and phrases out of the reply, and eventually heard nothing at all. 

How had she found out? She probably had contacts in the military jail who told her that something newsworthy was going down. Goddammit, she didn't even _ask_ if she could say that shit. 

Even though he couldn't see the jail warden from where he was sitting, he knew the man was listening to the radio, knew how disgusted he would be - or maybe delighted - how he'd probably think that Ed had gotten what was coming to him - 

The crashing echo of a door slamming open broke Edward from his thoughts: his gaze twitched to the side to land on one very angry man in the doorway. The intruder was short, stocky, probably wrought with muscles under his police uniform. He stood there for a moment as if unsure what to do, covered in sweat, his eyes wild. Ed recognized him from earlier that day: the man had been one of the ones Ed had taken great satisfaction in taunting. The guy had seemed mostly unmoved by it at the time, but apparently his ploy had worked better than he had thought, because the man looked distinctly angry, now. He was heaving like a cart horse. 

"You," the man said, knifelike focus locking on Edward immediately. "You're the one they're talkin' about on the radio." 

Edward's muscles relaxed immediately, all thoughts of the radio and everything else forgotten. He knew the score, here. This was a game he could win. 

"Yeah, that's right. You found me. Good job - I'm right where you left me," he shot back, the taunting tone automatic. "What the hell d'you want?" 

The man came forward to the cell door, pulled a set of keys out of his pocket, shoved one in the lock, and twisted. A metallic clang answered the action. 

"You're the motherfucker who got my friend Tommy in jail with your goddamn _lying_ mouth. Tommy wouldn'a ever touched you. He weren't no faggot, like _you_." 

Ah, this was it, it was finally _happening:_ adrenaline burned through him, sharp and invigorating as a cold wind. This was perfect. This, he could handle: one fight, one stupid man ready to hurt him. This asshole had _no idea_ what he was getting into. 

The cell door swung open, and the alchemist shot to his feet, took a few steps forward, then waited, body fluid. He was so fucking ready. 

"Y'know, if he doesn't want people thinkin' he's gay, maybe he should stop tryin' to fuck men," Edward said, casually. 

"You little lying _cunt_ ," the man snarled, balling his huge hands into fists by his sides and scowling, lines etched deep on his face. "I'm gonna have you down on your knees. " 

This was _so much_ like that night, at least in the details - he had mouthed off to those fuckers, made them angry, and then they had attacked.. The difference was that this time, he could defend himself. Anxiety, anticipation, rushed through him, a fanged smile spreading across his face. He just had to let the man get one hit off on him. Maybe two, if he was feeling generous. Every inch of him was calm, languid, prepared. 

"Why is it that every guy in Central wants me on my knees for him these days?" Edward drawled. "I mean, really. I'm pretty popular all of a sudden." No: this time was not at all like the last, scared and angry in a back alley - this time, when the blow came, he was ready for it. He let the man's fist make contact with his cheek, let it throw his head to the side, but allowed nothing else: as the punch finished its trajectory, he bounced to the side, out of the way of further blows. 

He rubbed his cheek as he came to a stop - that would probably bruise. Excellent. 

As the man advanced on him again, a grin split Ed's face in half. The added stress on his swelling cheek made the expression hurt, but he didn't care. 

"You stupid bastard," Edward said, gleefully. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do this," he finished; then, he executed a perfect roundhouse kick right into the side of the guy's face. 

The look of confusion transformed into one of shock as Edward's attack careened towards him, and then, any expression at all was lost as his face compressed under the leather of Edward's thick boot. 

The man hit the ground with thud that sent delight, relief, satisfaction coursing through him. Ed heard the sounds of frantic scrabbling from down the hallway - probably the Warden, finally getting his ass in gear. 

"Hey, Warden," Ed called out as the officer groaned and shifted the officer groaned and shifted, trying to get up but unable to. His eyes were unfocused and his whole manner entirely disoriented. "You asleep on the job or somethin'? Get your ass in here. I thought one of your jobs was keepin' prisoners from getting assaulted in your jail. You're doing a piss-poor job of it, and I'mma tell all the reviewers so." 

The warden appeared in front of the cell, stupid, piggish eyes flickering from Ed to the man on the ground and back again. Ed stayed in his guarding stance, balanced on the balls of his feet, just in case either of them tried anything funny. 

" _Assaulted?"_ the man snarled back as he took in the scene _. "_ That's bullshit. You've attacked a police officer!" His cracking voice sounded almost more shocked than angry. The man stormed through the cell door, his brow slowly pulling down as he jumped to his own conclusions. He shifted his weight, like he was trying to decide whether to throw himself into an attack or not. 

"Go for it," said Edward, predatory, delighted - the pounding of his pulse in his wrists, in his brain, made everything in the world sharper, more immediate, more _real,_ than it had been since the attack. "I mean it. Attack me. I'll let you hit me once, just for the sake of fairness - then, you'd better hope you have a good doctor," he said cheerily, because clichés were only bad things when other people used them. 

The warden backed up a bit, sweating teardrops on his spotted forehead. That wasn't the face of a man about to slug someone: Ed wasn't sure whether this was disappointing or not. On the one hand, the warden punching Ed meant that Ed got to kick back, so that would be awesome. On the other hand, after all this impotence, vulnerability, and frustration, seeing the man flinch away from him satisfied some need he couldn't even put words to. 

The man on the floor finally stumbled to his feet, putting one hand on his swelling cheek and staring at Edward with the look of mixed hate and shock people get when they get burned by a stove they never knew was on. 

"Look here, pal," said Edward, teeth sharp in his mouth and bared to the world, "Let's do each other some favors. What d'you say? I could have fucked you over, and I didn't. I could have _wasted_ you, and I didn't," he said, his words briefly turning to a snarl - but by the time he spoke again, his voice was back to normal. "If I wanted out of this cell, I'd be out, but I'm still here. Now, all I want in return for my generosity is a fucking phone call. Think you guys can handle that?" 

In the background, the radio went right on murmuring, but Edward didn't hear a word. 

* 

Sudden understanding of what he was hearing drained, cold and painful, into Roy's gut. How had Rebecca found out about the attack on Edward? He hadn't said anything - had he? He had been very careful, he thought. 

Sickness overtook him as his thoughts reached the next logical step. God, was Edward listening to this? How was he reacting? Now, everybody in Central would know about one of the most painful and shameful moments the young man had endured in a life that had been full of such things. 

For a moment, anger at Ms. Daniels flushed through him; she hadn't asked permission to use that information, hadn't even contacted either of them to warn them about what was coming. Another part of him, rational and unaffected by this raw emotion, reasoned that she was only doing what she thought best, and that the information had been made public, in any case, when men had been jailed for the offense. She was breaking no laws. Spreading this news might even help their public perception, even if it hurt Edward in the mean time - to Roy, such collateral was unacceptable, but Ms. Daniels probably hadn't even thought about the possibility that Ed might not want it shared. The general stared hard at a spot on the wall, between the clock and the bookshelf, as she continued. 

_"So tell me about your relationship with Edward,"_ Rebecca said, both professionally interested and empathetic. _"Is your version of the story the same as his? Do you also deny the allegations that have been set against you?"_

__

_"I deny having done anything wrong, or illegal. Edward and I are in a consensual, stable relationship, in which both of us are of legal age, and neither of us are cheating on anyone. This puts us leagues above most politicians' relationships, no matter our ages or genders."_

__

Rebecca seemed to find this amusing. 

_"Point taken,"_ she replied. _"Alright, so let's put some of these accusations to rest individually: many claim that you were giving Edward preferential treatment from an early age in return for sexual favors."_

" ** _Categorically_** _untrue,"_ the general replied with a laugh, radio static crackling through the sound. _"Trust me, you would find that as funny as I do if you had known us when Edward was young."_

__

_"I see. So, what **was** your relationship like in Edward's youth?"_

__

_"Antagonistic,"_ Roy said, dryly. _"Decidedly antagonistic. He resented the fact that he had a superior officer in general, and that I specifically held that title. He was also quite volatile and easily angered, out to prove that he was as tough as anyone. Being both younger and,"_ he chuckled, _"rather **smaller** than was the average, he was constantly trying to prove himself to us, thinking that we didn't take him seriously." _

__

Momentarily lifted from his frustration, Roy smiled at the memory, leaning back into his mother's chair. 

_"The most notable facet of our relationship at the time was almost certainly how much I enjoyed provoking him into his fits of rage. It was really quite amusing."_ On the radio, Roy paused. _"If I did give him a bit more leeway than others under my command, it was because his actions reflected well on my command, not because he was doing me any… extracurricular favors. As long as that remained true, I was willing to accommodate some of his quirks."_

__

_"Like what?"_

__

_"He refused to wear the uniform from day one. I decided that I could deal with that: I realized fairly quickly that he was of more use to me as a plainclothes officer, so I allowed it."_

__

_"I imagine that this leniency incited some degree of jealousy among the other men in your command, and out of it."_

__

Perhaps it had, but if that were true, Roy had never heard a word of it. Most military officers probably realized that if they wanted to be treated like Fullmetal, they would have to show results like him, too - and who could match Edward's raw talent or his mad, reckless genius? 

_"To my knowledge, my treatment of him was never a source of discontent in the ranks, at least at the time. Another aspect of his 'special treatment' was that I allowed him to travel across the country when he wished, to pursue extremely dangerous assignments that others never would have taken on. They were happy to leave subduing rebel forces and mad alchemists to him. I'm fairly certain that most people were more likely to call him insane than be jealous of his relative freedom. However, the fact that he was so talented did cause a fair amount of resentment. When he passed the state alchemy exam, he beat alchemists who had been practicing for two, sometimes three times longer than he had even been alive, which is bound to cause some jealousy. That, and people often dislike sassy little geniuses, which he undeniably was._

__

_I didn't see much evidence of it at the time, but I suppose that this jealousy is coming to the fore now, many years later. The moment someone suggested that the two of us had been in an inappropriate relationship, everyone who had ever felt overlooked by him or in favor of him, or who had ever been jealous of his skills, decided that the only thing that could explain his success was that he was using his body for payment - especially given that he is unreasonably attractive."_

Roy actually winced to hear himself say that. His mother smirked at him from her chair. How often did he say things like that, he wondered? 

_"You said the jealousy is coming to the fore now. Can you give me any examples?"_

_"Well, most obviously, in the accusations thrown at us. The reporter who wrote these articles found people to quote - at least, I presume he did, although all of his sources are clinging to an oddly convenient anonymity. I can't see any motive anyone would have to call him a whore and a faggot, or me a pedophile and rapist, other than badly-disguised envy."_

The disgust in the general's voice came across quite cleanly. 

_"But the backlash has been more intense and far-reaching than just a bit of name-calling,"_ he continued; in his mother's bedroom, the man tensed, his mouth sticking together, cottony. It had been _much_ worse than just that: it had lead to innocent deaths. _"Now my lover is in jail, and I - well, because of these baseless accusations, I have been temporarily relieved of my duties and rights as a general of the Amestrian army, before I have even been given the courtesy of a trial."_

__

He let that hang in the air, to shock as it was meant to. Rebecca did not interrupt the dramatic pause - when it felt like it had come to its natural end, she continued. 

_"I'm sorry to hear that. How has this affected your life, or your work?"_

__

_"The effects have been more serious than I could have guessed."_ There was another pause: Roy remembered this moment, having to collect all of his excess rage and guilt and hide it beneath a veneer of calm surety _._ Shortly, he continued. _"It is no real secret that I support leaving the Ishballan refugees who are spread out across the country more or less alone."_

__

He wished he could have said more, could have unequivocally come down on the side of equal rights and giving the Ishballan people back the land that had been so cruelly and viciously taken from them, but the best he could do at the moment was to come out as opposing genocide and internment. Such a sick world he lived in, and he, such a hypocrite for playing by its rules. 

_"It is no coincidence that within just a few days of me being relieved of my duties, the military ran an operation that arrested hundreds of Amestrian citizens who were known to have had contacts with the Ishballan refugees living within the city, and also captured many of the the refugees themselves. Any who had been bold enough to get jobs and housing within Central to support their friends and families were targets,"_ he said, a vicious bite to his voice _. "At least six people died last night during the raids, although numbers on this are difficult to come across and even more difficult to verify. Most of those who were murdered can be found in no government records, and therefore are not officially 'people.'"_

__

Madame Christmas turned to face him, her gaze unerringly direct. 

"Is that true?" she asked, her face hard. She would not let her thoughts through the barrier of her eyes. Roy was grateful for this ability of hers: after all, he had learned the technique from her. 

As answer, the general gave a short nod. 

"I see," she said, her tone taking on a blackness, a bitterness, that he found mirrored in his own heart. "It just never ends, does it?" 

"It seems not," he replied, quietly. Edward would hear this, now, if he was listening to the interview: he would probably be angry at Roy for not telling him, but hopefully he would understand. "No matter how many times we humans make a mistake, we never can stop it from happening again." He gave a short laugh, sharp and pained: his own voice droned on from the radio, but he paid it no mind. "They say that 'Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' Maybe it's true, but I don't suppose we'll ever know, because in the whole history of this damn country, I swear that there's not one person who has learned from our past mistakes - at least, no one in a position to do anything about it. Sometimes I think that the saying should just be, 'We're doomed to repeat history,' full stop." 

Madame Christmas arched an eyebrow at him, the angle severe. 

"Well, that's unusually pessimistic for you, isn't it?" she noted rather than asked, swiveling her glass around on the table. Roy gave a huff that might have been a laugh under other circumstances, though there was no smile on his lips or in his eyes. 

"I suppose I am feeling unusually pessimistic today. You of all people can't judge me for that," he replied, lowering his eyes to avoid the questioning accusation in her gaze. 

"Yes, I can," she shot back, taking her cigarette from her lips, the filter stained dark red by her makeup. "Listen, an old woman like me is allowed to be a pessimist. I've done and seen too much shit to not be. But _you_ , _"_ she said, letting out the rest of her breath after that one word, the plume of smoke clouding the air between them. "You aren't allowed to give up so soon. You've got years of work ahead of you. Pessimists like me get along just fine in daily life, but we don't change shit. You can't change anythin' if you don't think it can be done, and that's just fact. So you get your head out of your ass and get back on target, you hear me?" 

Roy gave a twisted smile: her particular brand of encouragement was unusual, but effective. Her comment about having done and seen too much shit both amused him and hurt him;they both knew about what he himself had seen and done, about Ishbal and what it had done to him, but in this moment she didn't give a shit. She wasn't there to coddle him or pity him, she was there to make sure he didn't just lay down and surrender before he had even properly started. 

"I'm not giving up yet, mother," he said, a faint chuckle following shortly thereafter. "Sometimes, I just get so tired," he added after a moment, softly. Madame Christmas snorted her disbelief. 

"Tired! You're, what, thirty-one? Thirty-two?" she asked, to which the general responded with a long-suffering sigh. 

"Thirty-two, mother." 

"Thirty-two," she repeated with confidence, as if she had thought of it herself. "You're not even to middle-age yet! You're in the prime of your goddamn life. You ain't got nothin' to complain about." 

Roy, perhaps wisely, said nothing, just finished his glass of wine, smile frozen on his face. Spending time with his mother tested him in a way that few other things could. He knew she was proud of this fact. She loved turning him over to expose his soft underbelly, then prodding him there until he finally snapped back. 

"How very lucky," he murmured. 

"Damn straight," she responded, then fell silent. The radio chatter once again filled the space between them. 

_"…you will go on trial, and be able to clear your name, correct?"_ Rebecca's voice asked, from the old tinny radio on the bookshelf. 

_"Well, I will go on trial, at least: I am to report to the Amestrian Courts-Martial in approximately a week and a half to plead my case, but it is hardly guaranteed that I will be able to clear my name. In Amestris, our courts - but especially our military courts - work on the founding principle of 'guilty until proved innocent.' In other words, no matter the facts of the situation, I am to be held guilty if I cannot provide substantial evidence of my innocence, even if my accusers provide no substantial evidence, either."_

__

_"_ That's a dangerous thing to say," Madame Christmas muttered, eyes glinting, stare fixed unwaveringly upon the floor in front of her as her mind went to places her eyes could not follow. "You don't want to impugn the honor of the court system." 

Very true, but also something he had considered at length: he had, in fact, written a number of scripts for the interview, until he had settled upon this method of approaching that topic. 

"Sometimes, you need to take a gamble or two in order to see the returns you want." Roy replied over the rise and fall of his own voice in the background. "My hope is that people will hear me speak today and realize that I'm a progressive, and support me because of it. If they support me in this, then perhaps the judges will fear public scrutiny too much to give me an unfair trial. After all, if I get back into the government, then I can set get back to helping our country become a better place." 

At first, he had tried to think of ways to approach this interview that wouldn't out him as a political reformer, but the more he had thought about it, the more he realized that honesty might actually be the best thing to get him out of this situation. It might make things difficult for him later, but if he didn't get out of this, then there never would be a 'later' when it could trouble him, and all of his planning would be for naught. Sometimes, even in politics, you could only deal with what was directly in front of you: if you didn't look at the ground in front of your feet, you were liable to trip yourself. 

"Hm," Madame Christmas replied, still focused on that one patch of floor, still lost in her own thoughts. He wondered if she had even heard him. 

_"Well, best of luck in the trial. I'll be rooting for you,"_ Daniels said, as if the trial were a sports match. He thanked her for the sentiment, and she continued. _"Now, listeners back at home: if you have anything to say about this, feel free to call our line at…"_

__

He stood from his chair, done with listening for the moment. He knew that ideally, he needed to gauge the public mood, but even that knowledge didn't make him want to listen to the radio callers any worse. The ones before the interview had been brutal enough. He would have someone else listen to the responses to his own interview. 

He straightened his shoulders and back, not one to show even a moment of doubt. 

"That went well," he said, hoping it had. Madame Christmas watched him silently, her cigarette burned down nearly to nothing, still trailing wisps of grey up into the air. There was silence then, the faint orange glow of the cigarette reflected in her eyes. 

"You watch yourself, Roy-boy," she finally said. "Don't you go doin' anything too dangerous, you hear?" 

"I hear you," he replied, and flashed her one of his dashing smiles. "Don't worry, madame. I may be unconventional, but never reckless. I have it all under control." 

"You'd better," she drawled, then took in one last breath and crushed her cigarette into the ashtray. "Now, I wanna see you again tomorrow, you hear? We've had some operations going for a bit now, and I may finally have some news for ya." 

Roy nodded, indescribably grateful that he could trust everyone on his team to keep the ball rolling, even when he was thoroughly distracted by other things. 

"Of course." He paused, thought: tomorrow? That would be perfect for what he had planned. "Thank you for all of your help. But on that note, I have a request." 

That statement was met with the woman's own raised eyebrow. 

"Oh? Request away," she said, and he shut the door behind them. 

* 

The light through Edward's tiny, high window had increased in intensity as the sun fell into the west: the bars across the window left a sharp cross of shadow in the slow, orange light that pooled on the ground. Beside the hash of light and shadow, Edward sat on the ground, violently pulling himself up into one sit-up, then another, another - two hundred. Three hundred more to go. 

Edward had, for as long as he could remember, been a person easily given to boredom. During his younger years, he had chased the feeling away by poring over books meant for people twenty years older than him; as he grew, moving around the country every few days and fighting the bad guys kept the feeling at bay. After he quit the military, his scientific studies were excellent motivators: but now, when all of those options were taken from him, the only thing he had left was exercise. It probably wasn't the _best_ idea - every time he performed a rep, the action tugged a little bit at the cut between his legs - but it wasn't like he had too much else to do with his life at the moment. He knew his body: he probably wasn't injuring himself. He probably would have continued even if he _was_ injuring himself, those little shocks of pain adding sweet doses of reality to his trammeled existence. They reminded him of how sweet it had felt to fight a man, and be fought in return, in a way that was not only exciting but also _helpful_ to his cause. 

Nobody had come in to speak to him since he had come back to his cell after the warden had watched him through his call with his little brother: he found that he was slightly surprised by this. He had expected an inquisition of sorts, which he had been looking forward to, but he hadn't gotten it. What he got was a simple, silent replacement of the warden - hopefully, the new one wouldn't be so shit at her job - followed by muffled yelling from outside, as, presumably, the chief of police castigated the shit out of him for not stopping the attack _before_ it could get out of hand. Since then, the sounds of chaos from outside of his cell block had only gotten worse. Instead of one person dressing another down at volume, now Edward could hear a muffled shouting from all corners, combined with the occasional sounds of running and a constant interruption of ringing telephones. Clearly, Alphonse had now had time to put the next part of their plan into motion. 

He grinned, feeling more than a little bit savage, the burn in the muscles of his stomach growing as he did another sit-up, then another - three hundred. This was what victory felt like. This - yes, he remembered it, vaguely - was the more-or-less unfamiliar sensation of everything going according to plan. His bruised cheek barely even offered a twinge of pain. The asshole who punched him didn't hit nearly as hard as he thought he did. He was probably one of those guys who spent all of his time lifting weights, not getting combat experience, and so was actually pretty useless in a real fight. 

He almost wished it had been otherwise, that he could have had the opportunity to _really_ fightsomebody who knew what they were doing, but he knew that it was better this way. He definitely looked more like a victim when there wasn't a protracted fight. 

And look like a victim, he had. The police officer's assault on him had been everything he had wanted it to be, and the news outlets were salivating over the story, tearing at it like hungry dogs. In their turn, the police scurried around like little mice, trying to do damage control. He might not be able to see the outer office of the police station and the chaos that filled it, but he could imagine what it would look like, and the image was a sweet one. 

His daydreams came to an end when the door to the cell block swung open, smashing against the wall carelessly. This was clearly a person who had no real concept of grace or gentleness. To his surprise, Chief Inspector LaForet stood on the other side, her arms folded across her chest like a barrier and her feet spread apart. 

"Elric," she growled, her shoulders tense and her forehead carved with the lines of her irritation, "Come with me. You have a phone call." Across the concrete floor, she stalked forward, taking the ring of keys from her hip to unlock Edward's cell. He was up off of his ass and onto his feet in a second. 

"A phone call?" he asked, brightly. "Sweet. I wasn't expecting one of those. Awful nice of you to let me take it." 

The look on her face only grew more dour as the cell creaked open, and her chest puffed out. She didn't rise to his bait, just jerked her head toward the door to indicate that he should follow, then turned and started to walk in that direction. He really was quite surprised that she would allow him out of his cell, after all the trouble he had caused: but to be fair, she probably thought that not allowing him to take the call would end up making things worse rather than better. Besides, with his hands cuffed together, she clearly didn't see him as much of a threat - maybe she had missed the memo that he had taken down the other officer with the handcuffs on. Alternately, maybe she could tell that he had already caused all of the chaos that he really wanted to. 

"You mad?" he asked as he followed her, trying again to get her attention. He could almost see her twitch in front of him, or maybe that was his imagination. "Now, why would you be mad at poor me? It _was_ your officer who attacked me, after all, not the other way around. I'm as pure and innocent as a little lamb," he finished, the affect of innocence not keeping him from driving every word in, like a chisel. 

She rounded on him then, glass shards in her grey eyes. She put her hands on her hips, thumbs back; the way her chest puffed out seemed to make her grow. One side of her mouth had twisted down: he wasn't sure if it was a scowl of displeasure or contempt. 

"And he's being disciplined for it," she growled. "But _you_ were the one who sent my station into an uproar." The way she said it gave him the funny feeling that she was less angry at him than she was just _angry._ "So you shut your smartass mouth, boy, before I rethink my generosity and send you straight back to that cell." 

"Alright, alright," he said, putting his hands up, palms-out, in a placating - and perhaps more than a bit patronizing - gesture. Or, as best as he could, anyway, considering his restraints. "Jeez, calm the fuck down. You've got some serious aggression issues to work out, lady," he said, which was probably hypocritical of him, but made her bare her teeth for just a second in a way that amused him. Perhaps wisely, she didn't respond to him verbally, but just let her lips back down into a scowl and turned back around to march out into the chaos of police headquarters. Edward followed behind, bouncing a bit with every step. Today had been a weirdly good day. 

He didn't know quite what he had expected to happen upon his entry to the main office room at headquarters, but it wasn't this. Maybe it was just his ego talking, but he had thought that maybe everybody would stop what they were doing to throw him sideways glances, and grumble about him amongst themselves. Nothing of the sort happened. In fact, everyone in the huge, open room seemed entirely too busy to even notice that he existed. They were all in panic mode, and panic mode inspired tunnel-vision in the grand majority of people. They probably wouldn't have noticed him if he had been naked. 

But, even though they didn't all stop to stare at him, he could still enjoy the frenzied activity that his plan had wrought with a great deal of satisfaction; men and women in and out of uniform scrambled about, carrying stacks of papers, barely avoiding obstacles and occasionally crashing into each other as others held telephones up to their ears as they stalked around their desks. He passed by one dark-skinned man who was massaging his temples compulsively as he responded to whatever the reporters were saying on the other end of the line. 

Man, he had really done a number on them, this time. The thought that one little plan of his could create so much trouble left Edward feeling positively buoyant. 

The clouds of officers _did_ notice LaForet, though: he imagined that she was not the sort of woman one ignored when she was in a bad mood, which he guessed was almost all the time. The chaos cleared in front of her as men and women scrambled out of her way, leaving the two of them a clear path to her office. He considered making another snarky comment at her about the state of affairs in the police department, but decided against it - he had probably already gotten two strikes, and a third would send him right back to his cell without talking to whoever it was who wanted to talk to him so much. 

The door they headed towards had her name engraved on a brass plaque on the front, and she stomped up to it, twisted the knob, then pushed the door open and gestured for him to enter. The room was organized to a fault, not a loose paper to be seen, nor anything so human and personal as a framed photograph. He wondered, briefly, who she was when she was off-duty - but the thought was cut off by the more urgent interest in the identity of his caller. The only thing out of its precise order in the whole room was the telephone receiver, which lay off of its hanger on her desk. 

As she shut the door, he walked over to the phone, but picking it up with his right hand led to his other, and tried to pick it up in his right hand: however, said hand was cuffed to a foot-long metal bar which was attached to his left one, so the attempt ended with his left hand floating stupidly up in front of his face as he pressed the speaker to his ear. He shifted slightly, replacing his hand with the pressure of his shoulder, and bent his neck to the side to keep it up, letting his hands fall down in front of him. In payback for making him hold the phone in such an uncomfortable position, he walked around her desk and sprawled out into her chair. He kicked his feet up onto her desk, thus claiming it as his territory. 

Her scowl twisted even deeper, if that were possible, but she didn't say anything about it. He let his hands rest in his lap, then turned his attention to whoever was on the other end of the telephone line. 

"Yo. Ed here," he said, watching the expression on LaForet's face change from angry that he had taken her chair, to irritation at the way he spoke. He decided he liked the woman. She was fun to annoy. "What can I do ya for?" 

"Edward!" came Roy's voice from the other line, sounding both surprised and relieved. "I thought I'd never get through to you. I called the police station probably ten times before anybody even picked up." 

"Mustang! Shoulda known it would be you," he replied, pleased, twirling a finger around the telephone cord. He released tension in his shoulders that he hadn't even known he had been holding. "I tried to get a hold of you earlier, but Hawkeye said you weren't at the office and you weren't picking up at your house, so yeah. I'm not surprised it took you so long to get a call in, though. It's been pretty crazy over here," he finished. Ed could basically hear the other man raising his eyebrows at that. 

"And was this your doing?" the general asked, in a warm tone of voice that implied he wouldn't believe a negative response. 

"Who, me?" Edward asked, putting on his best innocent voice and letting a grin wash his face. "Why would you think that? I'm hurt." 

Roy laughed from the other side. 

"Edward, if there's any trouble within fifty miles of where you are, it usually has something to do with you," he said, and Ed couldn't really argue with that. "I'm glad you seem to be in high spirits, at least," he added. It was true: Ed was, for the most part, feeling damn good. "So, what did you do?" 

"Eh, not much," Edward said, brimming with pride and self-satisfaction. "A police officer swaggered into my cell, making all kinds of noise about how I was a lying bitch, and then he punched me. I kicked him in the face, and he went down like a hunk of meat." A glance back at the Chief Inspector caught a wince in the crevices of her eyes - but it was gone again as quickly, and he wondered if he had actually seen it at all, or if it had been solely his imagination. "Then I called Al. He did the rest. You'll have to ask him for the details, I haven't really been part of the game, past that." 

"I see," said Roy, thankfully with fondness rather than the resignation with which he sometimes responded to Edward's exploits. Mustang knew what was up: Al had called all of the news outlets in the area, who were quick as fire to catch on to this particular story. Edward was a media darling right now, after those interviews. The public was not going to take well to hearing that he had been a victim of police brutality, after everything that had _already_ happened to him. 

Those last words came to him, and he pushed them away. He wasn't thinking about that. Four men in a back alley didn't own him. 

"Well done," Mustang added; then, "I'm proud of you." Ed could feel his chest swelling, the pride collecting in his throat; apparently, thatwas what he had needed, as much as anything. "This is working better than I had even hoped," he said, and Edward's smile broadened. "The media reporting on it like mad, you at the center of the maelstrom, and you didn't get too terribly injured, to boot." A brief pause. "At least, I assume you would have told me if you had." 

"Just some bruising on my cheek. It'll be gone in a couple of days, nothin' to worry about," Edward said, cheerily. "Now, the _other_ guy…" 

"Is in much worse condition, I'm sure," Roy replied, chuckling. He let that drift off into silence: but it was a pregnant kind of silence, like something was about to crawl out of it. "But… Mostly, I called to see if you were… alright, otherwise," he said, quietly. 

Ed blinked. Somehow, he hadn't expected the conversation to take such a serious turn quite so quickly. 

"What do you mean?" he asked, like he was stupid. He could have kicked himself. 

"…You did hear my interview, didn't you?" Roy asked, and Ed wondered if the other man would feel hurt if he said "no." He had been otherwise occupied for most of it. 

"The first fifteen minutes or so, yeah," Ed replied - and what a fifteen minutes they had been. "That was when the dude came in and hit me, so I wasn't really listening to the radio right then. By the time I got back to my cell after calling you and Al, the whole thing was over." 

"So you heard… the first part," he said, more like a confirmation than a question. Ah - so Roy was referring to the public announcement of his assault. Of course he was. Briefly, Ed wondered - if he hadn't heard the public announcement of his assault, himself, would Roy tell him now? Or would the general try to keep that under wraps for as long as he could, try to make it so that Edward didn't have to ever know? He wondered - but it didn't really matter, in the end, because he _had_. He looked over again at LaForet - she had averted her eyes, staring at the wall, her body twisted slightly away as well. Had she heard the show, or heard about it from someone else? Did she know? What did she think of him. 

He couldn't let himself think about that. 

"Yeah," he said, trying to keep his tone nonchalant. It was easy, over the phone, to hide the way his body reacted to the question. "I did." 

All of a sudden, a rush of apologies fell from the general's mouth. 

"God, Edward," he said, his voice strained and tired and hurt. "I am so sorry. I never meant for her to say any of that - I swear to god I never told her, not a word of it. I never would have -" 

"Hey, hey. Calm down, Mustang," Edward said; his head sunk and his shoulders rose. He wanted so badly to be able to cross his arms. "I know you wouldn't have said anything to her. It's cool. Don't worry about it." 

When the general responded, the tone was half-worried, half-suspicious. 

"But… Are you _alright?"_ he asked, sensing that Edward was trying to avoid the question. The younger man didn't want to lie, if he didn't have to, but he also _really_ did not want to delve into that particulardeep dark, especially not over the telephone, in front of Madame Hardass. He settled for a compromise. 

"Better than you'd expect," he said, keeping the smile up - whether for his sake, for Roy's, or to fool the woman in front of him, he wasn't sure. "In any case, I can handle it, okay?" A brief pause: Roy took in what he had said. 

"I know you can," Roy said, the slight strain to his voice unidentifiable - or maybe Ed could place it, if he thought about it, but he wasn't going to. "My worry is that you just _won't._ This has, after all, been a problem in the past," he added, with a bit of a joking tone. 

Edward shrugged, or tried to: it didn't do any good, because Mustang couldn't see him, and it was hard when he was using one shoulder to press the telephone up against his ear. 

"Don't you worry about me, bastard," he said, with a laugh that didn't entirely cover the tension in his voice. "I've got it all worked out. It'll be a couple of days, tops. I'll be back out, and you'll see." _And we can talk about it then, if you really want,_ he added, silently. 

"You promise you won't get yourself into any more trouble?" the man asked, seriously. 

"Of course not," Ed replied, as if offended. "What kind of idiot do you think I am?" 

Roy laughed at this. 

"The kind I am deeply, madly in love with," he said, and Edward felt the blood rush up immediately to turn to a blush on his cheeks. His embarrassment at the endearment almost overwhelmed his gratitude that the man seemed to have heeded his silent request to let the topic go, at least for the moment. 

"Oh my _god,"_ Edward replied, blood rushing to his face. He fought the urge to cover his face with his hands to keep LaForet from seeing the blush: he knew that in reality, it would probably just draw more attention to him. "My interview made you get all _weird_ and shit, didn't it? I should never have said anything," he added. Secretly, he probably didn't mean it. 

__

Roy laughed, and this time it was truly genuine. 

"Don't be that way," he said. "Have no fear, the 'weirdness' will probably dissipate soon. We'll be back to our sniping and arguing in no time at all, just wait," the general said, which made Edward snort a laugh himself. "In any case, I'm glad you're alright. Promise you'll stay that way?" 

He couldn't promise anything, really, and they both knew it; but he also knew what the correct answer to that question was. 

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "You worry too much, y'know that? You're gonna be grey by the time you're thirty-five." 

"Perhaps," Roy answered, "But I will be a young, _dignified_ grey, and by the time _you're_ thirty-five, you will still likely be mistaken for a teenager." 

Edward growled, slamming his feet down on the ground. 

"Are you fucking calling me _short?"_ he snarled: right now, of all times, the bastard was pulling that one out again? 

"Not in the least," the general replied, silkily. "I would never even suggest such a thing." A pause: before Edward could fill it with words, Roy spoke again. "Really. Stay safe, okay?" he said, and Ed pretended that he didn't care. 

"'Course I will. Who d'you think you're talkin' to?" For a moment, some part of him wanted to try saying, _I love you, too -_ just to see how it felt, of course - but his tongue became thick and clumsy as he thought of it, and trying to press the words out of his mouth anyway sent shocks of anxiety through him. 

"Asshole," he added, instead, and that was okay: it meant the same thing, anyway. 

* 

He found his wife in their back garden, knees together and hands folded in her lap as she watched the full moon rise above the unsteady rustle and wave of the wind in drying leaves. She was beautiful, there; shoulders bare, hair curving perfectly down almost to the small of her back, she looked almost unreal, like a statue. He approached her from behind, wordless, and with hardly a moment's thought took off his jacket to drape it over her shoulders. 

"Meredith, dear," Weimar said, brushing one stray lock of hair back behind her ear, "aren't you terribly cold? It's getting late; you should come back inside where it's warm." 

Although she did not acknowledge his approach, she did seem to have heard him coming: at least, she betrayed no surprise at hearing his voice in her ear, at feeling the weight of the cloth over her shoulders. After a moment, she responded, toneless. 

"I'm fine out here, thank you," Meredith said, her eyes never turning away from the scene in front of her. Weimar sat down by her side on the cold stone of the garden bench. Nothing was in bloom at this time of year, of course, but vibrant colors had begun to bleed into the drying leaves as they aged and cracked. The green laced with crimson and orange, though now it was barely visible in the faint light from the house behind them, would make an arresting sight in the daytime, he was sure. It had been so long since he had stopped to look. So many days, the colors just passed him by. 

She didn't speak another word, which struck him as strange. Most days, she asked him how his day had been, what he had been doing, talked to him about what she had been doing - anything to fill the silence of their house. Perhaps she was just feeling quiet tonight. No matter: he could make up for her reticence. 

"How has your day been, love?" he asked, placing his hand atop hers in her lap, stroking her wrist with his thumb. He let his gaze follow hers, off into the endless distance of the night sky. After a wait that was slightly longer than felt natural, she responded. 

"…Thought-provoking," she finally replied, turning very slightly towards him, so that one half of her face was carved in faint light and the other thickly shadowed. She didn't say anything else, just sat there, as if waiting for something. Discomfort began to make itself known in Weimar's stomach, a pale fear tied to anticipation. This was an inaugural sort of silence: instinct told him that something would begin, tonight, although he was unsure of just what it was. 

"In what way?" he asked, sliding an arm around her waist. His heart beat heavy in the hollow of his throat. 

She twisted her body further to look at him directly, her eyes scanning his face, tracing every line of his countenance as if they were suddenly unfamiliar. 

"Have you listened to the radio, today?" she asked; although the way she said it was abrupt and forceful, as if it were a change of topic, he knew it was not. He stiffened, his head held high and proud. Yes, he had heard the interview with Edward Elric that had played for the first time the night before; he was not yet so lost in his own machinations that he could miss something so crucial. 

The interview had, in fact, haunted him: the words _I love him_ echoed still through his mind, over and over, arousing a fury in him as inexplicable as it was undeniable. He had listened to the broadcast in a deep, frosty silence, inconvenient emotions sprouting and tangling in him like thick weeds. 

"Are you referring to Fullmetal's interview yesterday?" he inquired, as if his thoughts on the matter were no more potent than polite interest. 

She shook her head - then, as if thinking better of her denial, shrugged. 

"Not exactly," she said. "Partially, I suppose." Her voice was perfectly even as she spoke, but he knew her well enough to be able to see the nervousness in her. He waited for her to continue, the dread thick on his tongue. "There was a follow-up interview this evening, with General Mustang." 

He frowned: he had not known this. That fact surprised him more than the actual news had. It made sense that Mustang would do another interview, but the fact that Weimar hadn't known about it until that moment was worrisome. Perhaps he _had_ been too lost in what he was doing, had become oblivious to what was happening around him. Part of the problem, he thought, was that there were so few people he could trust with his plan that he couldn't delegate any of it: he ended up doing it all himself, in addition to taking care of his normal duties as a General and overseeing the defense of the country. It was almost too much for one man to bear: and yet, there was no one else he could trust to truly be his partner in this. 

Political allegiances were so fickle, subject to change at a moment's notice: if he let someone in on this plan, he never knew when that person would decide to use the knowledge they had gained about him as blackmail to further their own cause. And he could be discharged, even jailed for his activities: the Fuhrer and the courts would not look kindly on the fact that he had fabricated evidence of Mustang's crimes. True, he had only done it to expedite the process - finding the actual evidence of those crimes might have taken years, which was longer than he had been willing to wait, given the circumstances - but the fact still would not stand in his favor if anyone ever found out. 

Well, Mustang and his team wouldn't be able to surprise him like this for much longer. He had seen to that, this afternoon. His plans were already in motion. Those responsible would be taken to task for it. 

"Is that so," he said, his voice darkening. "I take it you listened to it?" A silence, in the affirmative. "What did he say?" he asked, keeping himself calm. 

"Many things," she replied. "A number of those things disturbed me greatly." Her normally earnest eyes were distant, barricaded against him. 

This set fire to his anger; he had _told_ her not to listen to Mustang, warned her that the man was a snake-charmer, hell-bent on lying and schmoozing his way to the top. For a moment, he was disappointed in his wife's weakness: even Meredith, who he had trusted more than anyone, had been corrupted. For a moment, his rational thoughts took their leave: despite their absence, his lips continued to form words. Like a gun, he shot out: 

"I _told_ you not to listen to him." The force and venom with which he said it surprised even him. "I _told_ you to be on your guard against him and his lies. I can't believe that you would _believe_ him, after everything." 

She froze him in the coldness of her eyes; the sheer force of it made him regret having spoken at all. 

"I'm sorry," he said, as his mind caught up with his mouth. "That was uncalled for. I didn't mean to come across the way I did. Please, continue." He took a deep breath. "What did you hear?" 

He never should have let Mustang and Meredith meet. Clearly, the man had planted the seeds of rebellion in her that one afternoon, had begun to poison her against him. But what could Mustang have said in the interview that would have set the process back in motion? 

A black thought crept up in him: what _other_ subversive material was she listening to while he was gone? He might have to talk with her about this \- but later. Not now. Not while she was still fixing him under that stare, like there was hurt behind her armored mask. 

"Mm," she said, and he hoped that she had taken his peace offering for what it was. He tried out a smile, but she did not mirror it in return. "I have to know. Mikhael, did you order the attack on that boy?" 

Weimar's brow knit together and his mind went blank as he tried to think of what she could mean. 

"You mean, the newspaper articles?" he asked, slowly, collecting his thoughts. But it sounded stupid the moment he said it: she knew about that already. She wouldn't have asked that, not like this. 

She shook her head and watched him, as if evaluating his reaction. The most confusing part of this whole thing was that he really wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond. 

"No. I already know everything I need to about that," she said; then, she pulled her head back, her chin raised. "I mean the sexual assault. Was that your doing?" 

A dead, electrified silence: Weimar took it in, his face frozen in his surprise. This was the first he had heard of it. 

Watching him carefully, and seeing no recognition on his face, she continued. "The host of the interview - and let me add that General Mustang didn't mention a word of this himself, so don't you dare accuse me of having simply fallen prey to his charisma - said that four men are in military prison for attempting to rape Edward Elric last Friday night." 

The whole thing was so surreal that he almost wanted to laugh: sexual assault didn't _happen_ to men. Was there even a law against it? He was fairly certain that rape law defined the act as forced penetration of a _woman_. But that was neither here nor there at the moment: he shooed the irrelevant thought away. 

Meredith still sat in silence, her hair strung with silver in the moonlight, waiting for his response. It hurt, perhaps more than it should have: he reacted with such surprise to the revelation, and still she thought that he might have had something to do with it. Did she think he was lying to her? 

"This is the first I've heard of it," he eventually managed to reply. 

"Don't lie to me, Mikhael," she said, and in that one moment it was like she was truly present again; he saw a glimmer of distant tears in her eyes. "I don't think I could stand you lying to me." Lying? So that really _was_ what she thought of him. In the war between hurt and anger, he didn't know which had the upper hand. "I can't believe anyone would want to hurt that boy like that," she murmured, a crack suddenly appearing in the smooth finish of her voice. 

Weimar turned to face her head-on, clasping her hands between his own. They enveloped hers, warming them against the night air. 

"Meredith, my love," he murmured, his steady gaze locked on hers. For the first time that evening, she seemed to have lost her mask: her eyes swam with unshed tears, and he could look into her eyes and see the hurt, the confusion. "I swear to you, by all that is holy, I had no hand in that." There were some things that were beyond even him. "And I have to say that I'm hurt that you even considered that I might be connected. Did you really think me capable of such a thing?" 

Her response was immediate, animalistic in its unprepared honesty. 

"I don't even _know_ anymore!" she cried, her voice cresting upwards, high-pitched. A tear slipped out of the corner of one eye, down the bridge of her nose. "Maybe! With all of the other terrible things you've been doing, I wouldn't be surprised! You're so _secretive,_ Mikhael - you don't tell me anything, and when I piece together what you've been up to, it always seems to be something horrible. I have to wonder what you've done, what you're _doing,_ that I never find out about." A deep, juddering breath. "We've been married for years, now, but I know you less now than I did all that time ago. Even though I've been here, by your side, I feel like I've slowly been losing you the whole time." 

This outburst was followed by a stunned silence: her words hit him like a blow, designed to hurt him where he was most vulnerable. 

How could she say that? How could she say that she was losing him? He had given up _so much_ for her. He had been faithful to her through all the long years of their marriage, despite the temptation of his unholy preferences. He could have slipped, but no: he had stayed true. 

"Losing me?" he asked, incredulity in his voice, but something much more raw bubbling down below. "I have shared more of myself with you than I have with anyone else." It was true. "I have only ever been kind to you, treated you with respect. I have let you do as you liked. I have given you everything you wanted," he said, jabbing a hand back towards their mansion, bought with many years of hard work, while she sat at home and threw _tea parties_. 

"Well, what about what _I've_ done, Mikhael?" she shot back, clenching a hand to her chest in a gesture of sincerity, or perhaps of pain. "I've been the perfecthostess, the perfectwife. When the days you spent at the office grew longer and longer, when having you home for dinner became a rarity, when the loneliness grew so bad I thought it might swallow me up - I never complained. Not once!" Weimar flinched, struck. _Lonely? Has she been lonely?_ The words came out in a gushing stream: each one beat at him, and yet she did not stop. "I married you, even though I knew you would never love me the way you loved my brother, that I was made the wrong way for you to love me like that. I married you, even though I knew that Jonah's ghost would sleep between us for the rest of our lives, because you needed a wife. Because I _loved_ you, and I was willing to give up my chance at happiness to help you get where you want to go. I believed in you," she said, words thrown as an accusation. Her speech gained vehemence as she continued, brewing until Weimar felt as if he were at the head of a gale. 

"And now, after all of these years, you've almost reached the very top - but at what cost? Your integrity?" She stood up, then turned to him, silhouetted in the moonlight, her hands thrown out to emphasize her words. "I have given up so much to get you where you are, only to find out that you're doing _these_ kinds of things now that you're here? When I tell you that I am against your little under-the-table machinations, you just smile and nod and pat me on the head, as if my concerns don't even merit a response," she spat. Did he do that? Guilt clenched in his chest, and although it was not an unfamiliar emotion, it was strange to feel it again so strongly, now. Her words were having their desired effect, but she did not relent. "Every time one of those articles appears in the newspaper, I feel sick. _Sick,_ Mikhael, to know that by my silence I am supporting this. You are making a fool out of me, and a joke out of the life I have chosen - for _your_ sake. I thought I was supporting a good man, that if you became Fuhrer, then justice would prevail. But that's not what has happened. You grew more powerful, and you _changed._ " The silence that strung the air was powerful. She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her words were deliberate. "Whether you directly ordered those men to hurt the Elric boy or not, you _are_ at fault for that attack. It was the articles _you_ commissioned that made those men decide they should do it. And I think that, on some level, you wanted something like this to happen." 

Hearing her say those words - _the articles you commissioned -_ out loud triggered a panic in him; Weimar scanned the scene around them, frantic. They were out of doors, and it was dangerous to say such things here, where anybody could hear them. He saw no-one, and although that didn't truly put his mind at rest, there was little else he could do for the moment. 

"Keep your voice down," he said, his voice low. How could she put him at risk so casually? If someone heard, then he could be court-martialed, same as Mustang. All of her rant, his surprise at hearing her say those things, blurred and melted away as his anger rose. How could she say such things in public? "And don't you hurl those accusations around at me, madame," he said, slowly rising to his feet, until his face was level with her own. "I have only ever tried to protect him. I have given him an opportunity to escape his bonds. He has chosen to remain with Mustang. I cannot help it if there are consequences for his decisions." He drew himself up to his full height: his automail port ached, like there was a storm coming, but he ignored the twinge. To put him and everything he was working for at risk over one slut's virtue? How could she. "And besides, you have no way of knowing that it had anything to do with those articles. Maybe none of it ever happened; maybe it's one of Mustang's lies. Or maybe Fullmetal cheated on his boyfriend and Mustang found out, so he accused those men to make himself seem blameless. Or even if it _did_ happen, maybe Elric was flirting with those men, and then changed his mind, decided at the last minute that he wasn't going to put out -" 

A white-hot flash of pain erupted across Weimar's face: his mind, truly astonished, took longer than it should have to process the sound that accompanied it, the startled look on Meredith's face as she stood there, hand still hovering where it had stopped, bare inches past his face. 

She had hit him. 

Mikhael brought his knuckles up to his cheek, slowly, perhaps trying to determine if it was real. It stung when he touched it. Her eyes were wide, and she stared at her hand as if it had surprised her as much as it had him. 

She really _had_ hit him. His wife had hit him. Over, what - some catamite boy she had never met? Over lies she had heard on the radio? 

"How dare you," he heard himself say, his voice rumbling, threatening, like a volcano. "How dare you hit me." 

When she replied, she sounded breathless, afraid. 

"No, how dare _you_ try to push responsibility for this terrible thing off on that boy?" she shot back, never backing down. "He never did _anything_ to you." 

"And I've never done anything to him!" Weimar snapped, his voice rising, growing. "I've been trying to save him! I've been trying to rescue him from Mustang and his deviant ways. I've been trying to give him a free out, a way to say that he's done being tortured and abused, that he's done being a sex toy for a man twice his age -" 

"They _love_ each other!" Meredith cried out, and then the single tear turned to a torrent: her cheeks were crossed with them. "You should have heard the way he sounded, when he said so." _I did,_ he thought, the words echoing in his mind: it was astonishing that the boy would still say so. He wondered what on earth could inspire such loyalty to a man like Mustang, when he apparently could not even keep his own wife's trust, when he had been true to her, provided for her every need, for _years._ "I believe him, and I don't think you have any right to judge them. We might not understand it, but they love each other, truly." 

Weimar's heart sank - his fury began to abate at seeing the tears in his wife's eyes, but the dismay grew. If she had been taken in by Elric and Mustang's play-acting, then how many other people had been, as well? 

When he spoke again, it was slow. 

"If he has convinced himself of that, then there is nothing more I can do for him," Mikhael replied. 

The silence crawled on, and she watched him with disbelieving eyes. Seven breaths - no, ten - before she spoke again. 

"This is wrong," she said, considering every word. "What you are doing is wrong. I hope you see that in time." With those words echoing between them, she turned, and began to walk away from him, to lose herself in the home they shared. 

Watching her go, Mikhael found himself frozen, unable to move or even say a single word in his defense. 

The door clicked shut behind her, and he did not follow. 

* 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, let me know! A comment I got less than a week ago actually made me so happy that it doubled my productivity for the next two days (thanks Camoclod!) -- so, you see, your kindness really does keep me going!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fwee. Two months later, I'm back! And a nearly 28,000 word chapter, too -- so sit down, kids, and get comfy. I think you're going to enjoy yourselves :)
> 
> Also, incidentally, for those not in the know, [my book is out!](http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=CB_AHOBD) (Actually it came out about a week after I posted the last chapter.) It's only five bucks, and I seriously would appreciate you guys picking it up. Full of delicious men having lots of hot sex together -- what's not to like?
> 
> Also, thanks to Kess, who was my personal cheering squad for this chapter and first reader, and as always, to Avine_sol and Kelzkori.
> 
> One last thing -- I've been having great fun recently talking to a couple of my readers over Skype, and I would love to talk to you, too! If you'd like to chat, my Skype username is the same as my writer's tag here. Oh, I also have a tumblr (also [Mthaytr](http://mthaytr.tumblr.com)) on which I reblog lots of nsfw yaoi and occasionally other fandom-y things. If anybody's curious about a status update on this thing at any time, that's also a good place to ask. So if you want hot men on your dash, come check it out!
> 
> Anyway, thanks for your support, everybody. I really do appreciate every single message I get :)

**Chapter 14**

* 

The replacement secretary was still around when Weimar stomped into his offices the next morning, his shoulders hunched, every step making his automail ache — it always hurt worse when the weather was wet. “Wet” was certainly one way to describe the day, besides “terrible”: even on the short walk from his car to the halls of Central Headquarters, the torrential downpour had soaked the vast majority of him through to the bone, his umbrella nearly useless when the wind kept changing direction. 

The woman smiled at him as he entered, apparently too stupid to recognize brewing fury when she saw it. 

At least this morning, none of his officers were crowding, doe-eyed, around her desk — they seemed to have learned an important lesson with his outburst the day before, and were scribbling furiously, hunched over their desks. The sight gave him a strange satisfaction. 

As annoying as it was to have her there, she could at least have some use. 

“You – secretary. Yes, you,” Weimar barked when she looked up, brow knit, to see if he was talking to her — of _course_ he was, how many secretaries did he have in here? “Go down to requisitions and get me a dry pair of boots — and socks to go with them.” His flesh foot squelched in his shoe, and the sound made him shiver. Although he couldn’t feel it on his right foot, he knew that his automail would rust if left in such conditions for long. 

The woman stood delicately, a smile still plastered on her face, her lips slightly parted as if she meant to say something but couldn’t decide what. Clearly, she didn’t really know how to respond to him. That was fine — he didn’t really know how to respond to her, either. 

“Um, I’m Marielle,” she finally said, faintly, after a moment, looking almost embarrassed to say so, as if she had given up on the notion that he cared. Good: she wasn’t going to be here long enough for remembering her name to be worthwhile. Even if he _had_ remembered her name, he wouldn’t have called her by it. “And, yes sir. Right away, sir.” Then, she smiled at him, more brightly than should be allowed, and said, “Good morning.” 

“And a towel, if you please,” he told her, rather than answering. She seemed to take the hint, this time: at least, she scurried off without attempting to get a reciprocal greeting. There was nothing good about this morning, not yet. His clothes were soaked and clammy, Mustang’s interview and the news that accompanied it had all the airwaves on fire, and to make matters even worse, he hadn’t seen his wife since they had come to blows the night before. When he had finally gone to bed, he had passed by one of the spare bedrooms and seen a light peeking from the crack under the door. 

Meredith had stayed the night in there, hiding from him. She had still been absent that morning, so he had been forced to stomp around the kitchen like a bull in a futile attempt to make his own breakfast. 

Never before had she refused to speak with him. This was more than just a single moment of rage or passion — she had deliberately rejected him. 

The thought made his face heat and his chest tighten, filling with a desperate need to do _something_ , he stormed over to the door to his inner office and wrenched it open, then slammed it behind him with equal force. For a few moments, he stood behind the door in a growing pool of water, shoulders heaving as he struggled to get his breathing under control, watching as if from a distance as the rain pounded on his office windows. 

What right had she to judge him? Meredith wasn’t the one who had to deal with Mustang every goddamn day. That holier-than-thou attitude; the smug, flirtatious smile that charmed and cajoled, that ruined Weimar’s plans; all of it made him want to fight the man, like he might’ve in his younger days. Some days, he thought that the only reason he didn’t was that he knew he would lose. 

Mustang’s smarmy face, draining of color as he sat in the courtroom, and listened to the verdict — the image pleased the general, reminded him what he was working towards. 

Mollified for the moment, Mikhael glanced over at his desk to find no correspondence upon it: that was alright, even expected. Most of the information he needed at the moment was too sensitive to relate in uncoded writing, and Rowan was astonishingly clumsy at code. He would take her report verbally later. 

He took his jacket off and hung it on the coat rack — it continued to drip onto the carpet, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. If the water ruined it, he would just have it replaced, and perhaps in a nicer color. He rolled the sleeves of his button-up shirt up, to better touch things without ruining them; a glance down at the rest of his uniform told him he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it until a towel arrived, so he decided not to worry about it. He walked over to his desk and sat down in his enormous leather chair, enjoyed the feeling of sinking into the thick cushioning. A deep breath; he had to calm himself, to re-focus on his work. 

Yes: he could do this. Nothing was beyond him. Even this would pass, as everything did. 

And then he was back in the moment again, away from his confusion and thoughts of his wife. He had things to do. 

A key from his pocket opened the lock on the front desk drawer: he slid it open and rustled around for a moment until his hand fell on the waxy, folded paper he had been looking for. He pulled it out, unfolded it on his desk, and smoothed his hands across it: a map of Central City, with a large sheet of translucent paper taped on top, overlaying the printed one with a neat sketch of the sewer system in green ink. Red pen marked certain houses on the map, high-risk areas: Weimar stared at it, face blank but mind running, for long moments before finally taking a pencil from his drawer and tapping it on the paper. 

The squeak of the door swinging open startled him from his concentration: he glanced up at it only to find Amelia there, gently sliding the door shut behind her. 

“I thought I told you to go get me some dry shoes,” he growled, irritated at her early return — but a single glance up from his desk told him that the woman had a pair of shoes in her left hand, a towel folded under her left arm and a uniform draped over her right. A twinge of guilt for his immediate judgment bothered him for a moment, but he let it go as quickly. The general glanced up at the clock: to his surprise, he found that it had been at least a good thirty minutes since he had given her the order. She didn’t seem to mind his rudeness, as she just curled her lips up at him and crossed the room. 

“I already did,” she said, meekly. “I got you a fresh uniform and undershirt, too. They’re not the right rank — they didn’t have any jackets for generals on hand — and I had to guess your size, but at least they’ll be dry.” 

His irritation at her interruption and mild guilt melted into gratitude. His leather chair was beginning to get soft, in the way of wet leather, and he would be happy to be out of these clothes. Perhaps this woman, annoying as she might be, might have her uses. 

“Oh. Thank you,” he said, certain that he sounded at least as surprised as he felt. She walked over to set the uniform down on his desk and laughed prettily. 

“It’s no trouble,” she said. Mikhael reached over to take the uniform from the table, but before he knew what was happening, she was on his side of the desk, kneeling in front of him; too shocked to respond, he simply sat there, dumbfounded. “No, no,” she said, gently, like a teacher admonishing a small child. “Let me help you with that,” she said, leaning forward: then suddenly there were fingers at his neck, deftly unbuttoning his collar, then the second clasp, then the third. 

Mikhael froze to his seat. All of his systems were raring to go, his blood pounding and his breath coming fast and shallow, and yet he could not move. The woman smiled, looking up at him through her thick lashes, and moved on to the fourth. What should he do? His body hadn’t decided. His mouth, overcoming its paralysis before his body did, at least managed _something,_ although it was hardly as coherent as he might have wished _._

__

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to sound disapproving and stern but only managing to sound shocked. His heart pounded in his chest, swallowing his words. 

“Helping you change out of your soaked clothes,” she said, with half a smile, directed up. _She **is** trying to seduce me,_ he realized — immediately his discomfort turned to panic, which only made him less able to deal with her. 

“I’m — perfectly capable of doing so myself,” he said, an uncharacteristic stammer in his voice. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to react, or that he didn’t know what he wanted to do — he _knew_ perfectly well. It was just that his mind was having trouble coming up with the proper words, and even _more_ trouble actually getting them out of his mouth. 

“I know,” she replied, in what even he could recognize was a sultry tone. Another button came undone. 

The slam of the office door against the wall startled them both: the woman kneeling in front of him jumped a bit, then turned to face this new threat. 

“Yo, boss,” came a voice from the door, accompanied by a sharp flood of relief. “How’s it —” The woman who spoke paused in the door, half a grin hung across her lips. “Ah. If you’re busy, I can come back later,” Rowan said, with more than a hint of amusement. 

Weimar wasn’t sure he had ever been more glad to see another human being. 

“No, please,” he said, and if he was perhaps begging her to stay, he was beyond the point of caring. Finally, under Rowan’s appraising eye, he mustered the coherence of thought to shove his chair backwards, away from the woman in front of him, and begin to button up his shirt again. “Not busy at all. Actually, I’ve been waiting for you,” he said: the woman on her knees before him gave him what was inarguably a pout, but he remained unmoved. He fixed a hard stare on the secretary, and growled: “Get out.” 

“But, General —” 

“Now. Before I call security and have you escorted from the building.” 

That had the woman on her feet immediately: she gave Mikhael a quick, apologetic bow, then was out the door as fast as her high-heeled shoes could carry her, although she gave an unmediated glare to the intruder as she swept past the other woman. This seemed to amuse Rowan: the soldier stood about a foot taller than Amelia or Griselda or whatever her name was, with thickly muscled shoulders that she loved to show off in the black uniform tank tops, and blonde hair that she wore in a military crew-cut. The secretary’s attempt at intimidation had all the effect of a mouse threatening a lioness: if the mouse got off scot-free, it was only because the lioness had bigger prey to hunt. 

As the secretary slammed the door shut behind her, Rowan grinned a sharp grin and pulled a cigarette from the pocket of her pants, clenching it between her teeth but never lighting it. 

“So who was that little pearl?” she asked, striding across the room to claim the chair in front of Weimar’s desk. She sat with her knees wide, leaning back with her arms on the rests, her pose as relaxed as an apex predator’s could be. 

“Nobody,” Weimar growled, finishing buttoning up his shirt. It was still wet, he noted with annoyance. The whole encounter had left him cold in more ways than one. 

“Really,” Rowan replied, dryly, an eyebrow cocked. “She seemed like an awful friendly ‘nobody’ to me.” 

“She was not ‘friendly’ by invitation, let me assure you,” the man returned, furrows of irritation growing on his forehead. 

“Ah, don’t get like that. I was just teasing you. I know it wasn’t on purpose,” she replied, giving the deep-throated laugh he had become so familiar with. God, why were there so few women in the world who were worth two minutes of his time? “I honestly thought ya looked relieved when I walked in. Like you were in need of a good rescue.” 

“I was, and I thank you for it,” he said, in this particular situation not too proud to say he had needed rescuing. Whores like that woman were far outside of his range of knowledge and experience. “Now, kindly do not mention it again,” he added, sliding his chair forward to his desk and lacing his fingers together on top of it. With the state of his clothing, he was beginning to get downright _cold_ , but he supposed he could wait and deal with that problem later. She grinned, bearlike, at him, but although he knew she was laughing inside, he didn’t really mind. Rowan was one of the few people he would allow that rare privilege. 

“Whatever you say, boss,” she drawled, kicking one foot up on the desk. “So back to business, then.” 

“Get your foot off my desk,” he told her, waiting in expectant silence for her to do so before continuing. She rolled her eyes at his fastidiousness, but did it anyway. “You have news for me?” 

“Yep. Everything went as planned,” she said. “I was in and out of there like a flash, got everything changed up the way it needs to be, and nobody saw me. We’re all good.” 

One of the things he liked best about Rowan was her willingness to do whatever he asked, without question. She had never shown so much as a single moral qualm for the entire time he had known her. Whether she even had scruples or not at all was a question that occasionally occurred to him, but in the end it didn’t really matter. She was loyal to him, and that more than made up for any deficiency in the rest of her ethical code. 

“Excellent,” he replied, enjoying a surge of satisfaction for the first time in a while. “The authorities should be going in late this morning or early this afternoon. You’re sure they’ll find what you left?” 

Rowan shrugged, and lolled her head back and forth, as if stretching her neck. 

“If they don’t, then they’re incurable idiots, and I can’t help ‘em. It’s where all the other shit is.” 

Weimar nodded, approvingly. No matter what, he could always count on Rowan to get the job done, and get it done well. She had once been an expert forger and counterfeiter, living beyond the law in Central’s underworld; now, since Mikhael had found and recruited her, she used her powers for good, and had become an invaluable part of the special forces over the years. At this point, she was possibly the _only_ person he could count on. The thought stirred more confusing emotions in his gut, which he proceeded to ignore. 

“Good. Thank you,” he said, shuffling papers around his desk just to look busy. 

“Hey, ‘s no prob. Just doin’ my duty,” she said, then clasped her hands together and stretched up to the ceiling. “I’m pretty beat, though. Getting into the building wasn’t as easy as I thought it was gonna be. Y’mind if I take the rest of the day off?” she asked, chewing on the filter of her unlit cigarette. 

“Permission granted,” Weimar replied. “Although I would greatly appreciate it if you would stay near a telephone, just in case I find myself in need of your skills shortly.” 

“I’ll either be asleep at home or at the pool hall. You know the number to get me at, either way,” she said, scooting her chair back with her feet and then rising to her great height. She gave him a salute, so casual as to be almost sardonic. “Good seein’ ya, sir,” she added. 

“Likewise. Dismissed,” he replied, and found that strangely, he didn’t mind that she had already turned to go before he said it. 

* 

Almost every newspaper in Amestris ran a version of the story the next morning, judging by the look of the newspaper stand Al passed by on his way to the police station. For some reason, it still surprised him to see the headlines, printed as they were in type sizes worthy of the Second Coming, though it shouldn’t have, really. He himself had given the presses the information about the officer’s attack on Edward; he should have known that they would have gone snooping around and found out about everything else, too. 

Alphonse paused there, on the still rain-slick sidewalk, and took in every headline, every photograph. _FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST VICTIM OF POLICE BRUTALITY, SEXUAL ASSAULT,_ read one; another, POLICE SCRAMBLE TO DENY ELRIC FIASCO. Only some of the smaller papers had missed the story, but that was alright: the story still seemed to have reached a kind of critical mass, and anybody who even passed this stand would no longer be able to claim ignorance of what was happening. Yes, this was a good thing: yet, even so, seeing his brother’s secret printed across the front pages of so many papers gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. He remembered the hot drip of blood down his knuckles, the stickiness as it crusted to his skin, the look of shock and terror on Gregory Asel’s face as a righteous fist had come crushing down onto the man’s nose, and again, and again… 

And how would Ed feel, to have this most private moment plastered all over every newspaper? Would he be alright? He didn’t know, Ed could be so hard to read sometimes — 

The honk of a car horn tore Al from his trance, for which he was grateful. He took a deep, fortifying breath, taking in the musk-sharp smell of the city after a storm: he had stood there in the maze of his own thoughts for long enough. The world was beautiful, despite any terrors, and Alphonse Elric had things to do. He fished five hundred cenz from his pocket and handed them to the stand attendant, who put the coins in his lockbox and waved a generous hand at the contents of his stand, then went back to watching the passing cars with a bored expression from inside his tightly wrapped rain jacket. Al thanked the man, a gesture which went unacknowledged, and picked up the paper that most interested him; as he walked forward across the concrete, he shook it flat in front of his face, and began to read. 

The streetscape around him turned to little more than a faint blur as his focus narrowed, as he took in every word, and it didn’t take him long to finish the article. To his pleasant surprise, it didn’t seem to contain any outright lies. The author may have exaggerated the magnitude of the officer’s attack on Edward, and the pity when she wrote about the sexual assault was almost palpable, but other than that, she repeated the story more or less as Al had described it. He smiled as he finished the last line. It was a grim expression, to be sure, yet victorious — the smile of a man who was winning a game he had never wanted to play. 

Once done with that, he folded the paper back up under his arm. This was perfect: exactly what he had wanted, except in all the many ways it wasn’t. But at least this way, Ed would almost certainly be out of jail soon. 

He wondered if Winry would read this newspaper. Probably not: she wasn’t much of the news-reading type. Or maybe, after what she found in it the _last_ time she read one, she was keeping track of their contents religiously. Should he should tell her about everything that had been happening? He very much wanted to have somebody to talk to about all of this, but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. His girlfriend, wonderful as she was in every way, would probably storm up to the police station and start making a scene if Ed wasn’t out by the time she got her. It was cute: she could be just as deaf to consequences as Ed was when she was protecting somebody she loved. 

Of course, she still loved Edward, and always would: he tried not to let that make him insecure. They had been doing so well together that it seemed unjustified and unfair to hold her affection for Ed against her. After all, he loved his brother, too, and she didn’t hold that against _him._ But still… 

He took a deep breath and crossed his arms in front of him. No reason to go thinking stuff like that: she had never done anything to justify that jealousy. With determination, he turned his mind to other things, to planning the encounter he was shortly going to have. 

A surprise preceded Al’s arrival at the police station: at half a mile away or so, he had begun to hear unusual noises. He hadn’t noticed at first — probably too busy analyzing his relationship with his girlfriend — but as he drew closer, it became impossible to ignore. A dull roar, cresting and shrinking like distant thunder, grew in his ears; he frowned, his brows drawing together, wrinkling his forehead. As he listened, he noted that he could hear words in the sussurance. What could that be? Whatever it was, he could probably be assured that it wasn’t good. 

Then, he rounded a corner and found himself faced with the answer to his questions: a great sea of people — a mob? No, not yet — crowded the steps of the police station with a restless energy that seemed liable to explode into something more ferocious at any moment. People radiated out from a few feet in front of the front doors of the police station, bodies pressed thickly together across the square in front of the building. A line of police officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder between them and the door, a good two feet of space in between them and the nearest civilian, the empty space as tangible and real as a physical wall. They glared at each other across the border between their worlds; Al could feel the gathering electricity, and it had nothing to do with the dark of the storm clouds that still hung overhead. 

_What is this?_ he thought, pausing in his stride to scan the group, search for any hints: although he listened as carefully as he could, he could make out no distinct words in the morass of language that the crowd — _protesters? —_ produced, so that didn’t help. No-one seemed to be holding signs of any kind, so that probably ruled out the possibility of this being a planned protest. It was probably a spontaneous thing, prompted by an unusual event. _Did something else happen?_ he wondered, taking another step closer. No: if anything of particular import had happened, he would have seen it in some of the newspaper headlines that morning. 

Then, a shock hit him, and he could have kicked himself for his stupidity in not seeing it earlier. 

_Is this all… for Ed?_ He wondered, his eyes growing wide with shock and awe. It had to be: that was the only reasonable explanation. After all, Edward had always been quite popular with the people of the country, and his radio interview had only improved his standing. Al had been expecting an up-swell of support — just not this much of it, or this quickly. 

He hoped this would be a good thing. Alphonse had never seen a riot before, but he wasn’t dumb, and he would bet his coat that the crowd’s mood was tense enough that it could explode into just that at a moment’s notice. The sight of all of those men and women, standing there together for a common cause, left him with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the thought filled him with dismay — he wished he didn’t live in a world where people had to use violence to fight back against injustice. Civilians in particular tended to get themselves in more trouble than they needed to when they did that. On the other hand, knowing that his brother inspired this kind of loyalty struck in him a fierce pride. But still… if they rioted, that probably wouldn’t help Ed any. He would have to be quick about this. 

Just to be certain of his analysis, he trotted across the street and over to the crowd, then singled out a likely protester — a young woman, little older than Alphonse, encased in a thick brown leather jacket, who stood alone by the edge of the crowd. By her position, he would have thought that she was merely incidentally involved, maybe just watching, except for the tension that radiated from her, and the intense look in her eyes as she locked her gaze ahead. 

“Um, excuse me,” said Alphonse, just loud enough to get her attention in the crowd: but Al’s version of Loud Enough was evidently not nearly Loud Enough for a protest, so when a second try garnered no response, he reached forward to tap her on the shoulder. 

This startled her: she spun around, eyes wide, feet positioned as if to run at the first sign of danger. Strangely, her body seemed to relax almost immediately upon seeing Alphonse, although her eyes remained narrow and considering. He supposed that he _was_ distinctly nonthreatening, especially with his hands up in a placating gesture as they were now. 

“I’m so sorry, miss,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit confused, as if she hadn’t considered that he hadn’t meant to. “Yeah, no, it’s fine. Did you want something?” 

“Yes. Sorry,” he said again, for good measure. “I just wanted to know what all of you guys were doing here,” he said, brushing his bangs out of his face. As he did, he felt a drop of moisture hit his hand: was it going to start raining again? Hopefully not. 

The girl looked at him as if he had just announced that he was a chicken. 

“Have you not been reading the news? Or listening to the radio?” she asked, and although normally he would find that question quite derisive, he wasn’t getting that vibe off of her. Rather, she seemed _angry,_ every bit of her humming with a barely-contained fury. Al recognized the look immediately: rage was a familiar emotion, recently. “The Fullmetal Alchemist is in jail, more or less because the state wanted to fuck with his boyfriend. Sorry, _mess_ with,” she corrected herself, for a moment looking a tad embarrassed with herself for the language, but she continued on before Alphonse could tell her it was okay, that he heard it all the time. “It’s sick and awful and we’re _tired_ of living in a country where you can just _disappear_ because you dissented politically, or even because you’re associated with people who do.” Although she was young, as she spoke, the words aged her. 

Ah, so there was something else behind all of this, an underlying problem that Edward had not caused but that mad his arrest hit all of those people so hard. He supposed that made sense: he couldn’t imagine people coming out in such force to protest a simple arrest. But nothing was simple in Amestris. 

But now would probably be the perfect time to send out some feelers on the topic, to see how people actually felt about Edward and his situation, whether or not they were likely to rescind their support once he was no longer under arrest. 

“I see. But… didn’t he commit assault?” Al asked. “I mean… That’s a thing you can go to jail for, isn’t it?” 

She shrugged, sweeping a hand back to toss her straight brown hair back over her shoulder. 

“I dunno if he did or if he didn’t. I’m kind of inclined to think that the reporter made all that shit up to get him in trouble,” she said, and he wondered if there was any institution of the Amestrian state that she _did_ have faith in, or if she had any reason to. “But even if he _did_ do it, he’s been a soldier for years: we’ve been showering him with praise for defending people physically since he was twelve. Adjusting to civilian life after all of that has to be tough. Now that he’s not military, all of a sudden we’re not praising him for that stuff, and are actually _arresting_ him for it — I wouldn’t be surprised if he was confused, and his instincts got the better of him sometimes.” A pause. She had hit the nail right on the head: although she didn’t know it, his trouble with changing back was literally what had led to allof their current problems. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s saved the lives of just about every person here today,” she said, gesturing to her side to indicate all of the people around them. She grinned, then, a bitter baring of teeth that was the closest she had come to smiling during the whole conversation. “What kind of people would we be if we returned the favor by leaving him to rot in jail?” 

So the people Ed had defended so passionately for all of those years really _hadn’t_ forgotten him, and apparently she had been one of them. But even though Al had been there through most of Edward’s people-saving adventures, he didn’t remember this girl. He wondered if it had been so long ago that he had forgotten, or if he just hadn’t been there for it. He wondered if Ed would remember. 

“I’m sure he appreciates it,” he said, turning his eyes to the old, weathered brick of the police building. Time for another question. “So… you’re not, y’know, bothered by all the other stuff you’ve read about him in the papers?” 

She gave him a hard, searching look, as if trying to determine his reasons for asking. 

“The fact that most of it is probably total bullcrap bothers me, yeah. But other than that? No,” she told him, curt. “And I think it’s pretty petty of everybody to go around quibbling about his sexual preferences after everything he did for us.” 

Al nodded. He wasn’t going to let himself feel the anger that threatened at the edges of his vision, though. Right now, what he needed was understanding, not righteous rage. Someday, he was sure that would be different, but at the moment, he needed to be clear, calm, analytical. 

“I agree,” he said: she seemed surprised to hear it, and the hitch gave him space to pause, to think. “But… Why does all of this matter to you so much? You seem very personally incensed by it. But you don’t know him, really, right?” 

“No, I don’t. But like I said, he saved my life.” Her turn to pause, collect her thoughts. The look in her eyes went distant, and she turned around to face the police building. Alphonse took a few small steps forward to stand properly beside her. “And besides that, he’s not by any means the first person to be put in jail for his political affiliations, nor will he be the last. It’s obvious that they’re angling for General Mustang right now. This is a threat, or a warning. The state is trying to tell Mustang that there’s nothing they’re not willing to do.” 

Was that true? Alphonse wondered. Chief Inspector LaForet had seemed mean, yes, and overly concerned with law at the expense of justice, but not corrupt. If it was true, then his plot to get his brother out of there might not work as well as he had hoped. 

Regardless of the accuracy of this part of her analysis, her take on the situation was quite enlightening. If she was any representation of the general mood, the response to Edward’s jailing had more to do with Amestris’s history of political repression than it did with Edward himself. For years, those who had challenged the status quo had been dropping off the map, one by one, and these people were tired of it. Ed was just the spark that caught the kindling ablaze. 

It was really kind of ironic, though: Edward had always been quite apolitical, preferring to pinpoint and take down individual instances of corruption without really paying any special attention to the larger systems that made such corruption possible. He had never really given a damn who was in power, as long as everybody was safe — and he did mean _everybody_ , as impossible a proposition as that might seem. Edward Elric had never set his sights low. The fact that, despite all of this, he had somehow managed to become a political martyr both baffled and amused Alphonse. 

He supposed, though, that that was just what happened when you got into a relationship with Roy Mustang, the man who was going to rule the world. 

“I see. Well, thank you for answering all of my questions so openly,” he replied. Then, suddenly remembering his manners, he extended his hand to her. “I’m Alphonse. It’s been very nice to meet you. What’s your name?” 

Her eyes widened in visible surprise as she heard his name: apparently, she knew of him, or at least guessed who he was. He made no move to confirm or deny her unspoken question, just smiled at her and kept his hand extended. After a moment’s hesitation, she bared her teeth, gave a sharp laugh, and took his offered hand. 

“Maya,” she returned, giving his hand a quick shake. “Nice to see you again, Alphonse. You look different from what I remember.” 

Alphonse laughed. 

“I get that a lot,” he said, letting his hand fall back to his side. “I apologize, but I don’t seem to recall our meeting as clearly as you do.” 

“Don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago, and you guys were busy. I was on the train that got hijacked by those Eastern separationists a long time ago, before Ed was a state alchemist. I was fascinated by your suit of armor and your brother’s automail. I was sitting in front of you two when the terrorists burst into our car with assault rifles. Remember?” 

He hadn’t thought about that incident in a long time, but doing so brought a smile to his face. Those had been simpler times, in a lot of ways — no politics to consider, no bad repercussions, just taking out the bad guys and saving lives. Wracking his memory, he did seem to remember a little girl’s smile, peeking over the train seat back at him, and a friendly wave. 

“Wow,” he said, smile widening. “You’ve changed a lot, too.” 

“Have I?” she replied, with a laugh; he was glad to see that, for the moment at least, his presence seemed to have lightened her mood. He was glad to be able to do that much for her, at least.. “Well, I can guess you’re here to stir up some trouble, so don’t let me keep you.” 

“Well, maybe not ‘stir up,’ exactly. I’m actually trying to keep trouble to a minimum.” She seemed mildly disappointed by this, so he added, “Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say my methods will be 100% legal,” Alphonse added, giving her a conspiratorial wink; this seemed to satisfy her. 

“Well, get to it, then,” she said, making a shooing motion with her left hand. “And tell Edward I said hello.” 

“I will,” Alphonse responded. “Nice seeing you again,” he said, before waving and taking off at a trot. 

“Back at you,” he heard from behind him; in moments, they had lost each other in the growing crowd. 

_Well, wasn’t that an interesting turn of fate,_ Alphonse thought, although he wasn’t really sure if he believed in such things or not. He kept going at a steady pace until he had left the protesters behind and turned the corner of the police station building, his heart lighter than it had been since the newspaper stand. 

He didn’t know how many of the people out there actually cared about his brother at all, or even knew much about him; regardless, they were all willing to come together over him, and that was an immensely encouraging thought. 

A smile on his face, he strode by the station wall towards the first window: it was important to know where you were going and who else was going to be there before you broke into a place. But inconveniently, the blinds to the first window were shut when he reached it, so he moved on to the next. 

The very act of trying to peer through the police station window shot a nervous thrill shot through him: he couldn’t believe he was going to do this, to break into the police station of his own volition. Historically, whenever he had done illegal things, he had always had his older brother dragging him along. Now, he was going to do it of his own volition, and break into an official governmentbuilding, no less. 

He smiled. His younger self would be mortified. He didn’t feel particularly bad about it, though — after all, desperate times and all that. 

The second window seemed to lead into a room full of occupants, the third had its blinds shut as well, but the fourth gave him a clear view into an empty office. Perfect. 

He dug into his coat pocket to find the chalk he kept there, unrolled it from the paper wrapping he kept it in, then brought it up to scrape a circle on the brick wall. A few extra decorations – a triangle here, a line or two there, a word or two in Latin – and he was done: he put his hand to it, felt the crackle of energy as he bent the elements to his will, shaping the stone to his will. A door came to life below his hand, like it had so many times before, and that feeling satisfied him in a way he couldn’t describe. 

After opening it, as quietly as he could manage, and passing through, he re-drew the circle on the other side and transmuted his newborn door into plain wall again, then put the chalk back in his pockets and wiped his hands off on a handkerchief he kept for that purpose. No sense getting chalk all over everything, after all. 

The office he had broken into was as empty as he had hoped it would be, and he exited into the hallway both quickly and quietly. Not, he noticed as he did so, that he needed to have bothered — upon stepping out, he discovered that the police station was churning in a state of general pandemonium, much to his amusement and silent satisfaction. The telephones never quite stopped ringing – _that's probably the reporters_ , he thought, smug: no sooner had one of the grunts at the main desks answered the phone than another line began to ring again and someone else had to do the same. People swirled back and forth, looking some combination of panicked and angry, mumbling to themselves or speaking at a rapid clip to someone next to them. In the chaos, one trespassing teenager went mostly unnoticed: he strode purposefully, but never too quickly, through the main office room, doing his best to give off the careless and yet focused air of someone who had a reason to be where he was. 

The snippets of conversation he could glean as he passed all sounded remarkably similar. 

“– no comment at this time,” he heard as he passed by one girl's desk – she couldn't be much older than Alphonse himself, and looked utterly bemused, clutching the telephone to her ear with white knuckles. After a silence, during which she was evidently listening to whatever the angry-sounding voice on the other line had to say, she started again. “The Chief of Police will release a statement –” 

But then, he had passed too far away from her, and the end of her sentence drowned in the storm of noise. Superior officers yelled at subordinates from across the room, and assistants loaded down with armfuls of binders scampered through paths between desks, depositing their loads in front of officers who hadn't had enough of this madness yet to look exhausted, but had certainly had enough to look annoyed. 

_One little scandal has the whole place in an uproar,_ he thought, pretending it was simply neutral commentary. _Serves them right,_ he added afterward, thus breaking the illusion. 

Al found the office room he was looking for with very little effort: it had the words _Chief Inspector LaForet_ engraved there, on a brass plaque riveted to the door. He peeked in through the window beside the door: this room seemed to be thankfully empty as well, and thus primed for a good break-in. A few surreptitious chalk-strokes and the judicious application of energy later, and he was inside. Taking a step forward and closing the door, Al took a moment to survey his surroundings: the place was sparsely decorated, with no pictures or anything on the walls or desk. The only objects of sentimental value, so far as Al could see, were three little medals, lined in a row inside a little glass case that she displayed on the bookshelf at the front of the room. Another few steps and he had plopped down in her chair. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, as he might've guessed if he had thought about it, which was sad — though it _did_ swivel, which quite made up for it. 

When the chief inspector entered her office again perhaps half an hour later, Alphonse had arranged himself perfectly to give off the impression of casual power: taking a leaf out of his older brother's book, he had crossed his feet up on her desk and folded his hands behind his head, though he wouldn't go so far as to lean the chair back on two legs. That was just courting disaster, and even if you _didn’t_ get hurt, it still started your chairs on a short road to ruin. He could break into a stranger’s office, yes, but he wouldn’t break in and ruin their furniture. 

“Hello, Inspector,” Alphonse said as the door swung all away open, enjoying the look of surprise and then disgust that crossed her face as she glanced down at the boots on her desk. He looked down at them himself, and had to repress the flash of guilt and the corresponding urge to take his feet off the desk; they _were_ awfully muddy. He told himself that he didn’t care, and very shortly had other things to worry about, anyway. 

“What the hell are you doing in my office?” she snapped, crossing her arms, creases furrowing into her brow. “How did you get in?” 

“I walked in. The door was open,” Al said, with his best innocent look. It was true — the door _had_ been open, although that had been because he had opened it. “I just came in to talk to you.” 

“Bullshit. I know I locked it.” She slammed said door shut behind her. “What do you want? For that matter, how the hell did you get into the station? There are armed guards at the entrances.” There was a glint in her eyes that told Al that the woman knew exactly how he had gotten in, but that she wasn’t about to make accusations until they seemed necessary. 

“That’s really not important right now,” Alphonse said, with a confidence and grace he normally didn’t feel when getting stared down by authority figures. It was as if he had temporarily absorbed his brother’s devil-may-care attitude, and it was working wonders. “And as for what I’m doing here, I'm sure you have a pretty good idea. I'm here to talk about my brother.” He paused, to emphasize the words that were going to come after.. “That's a nice mob you've got outside your door,” he added, conversationally. 

The woman scowled and leaned back against the closed door, arms still crossed. 

“Oh, that's right. I remember you now. You're the younger Elric brother. You’re the one I met in the lab, who told me that Harriet was making things out about your brother.” 

“Oh, so you had forgotten about me until just now?” Al replied, feigning insult. “I'm hurt. And Harriet _was_ making things up,” he added, with conviction. “Horrible things – things that would make any attacks my brother may or may not have committed entirely justified. Any reasonable person would have done the same thing. That's the criteria for whether to convict someone on assault charges, right?” 

“You can talk all you want, but in the end, it's up to the courts to decide whether to convict him or not,” she said, her scowl lessening, mellowed by some other emotion. “We police just arrest the accused and look for evidence about the case. The judge and jury decide guilt or innocence.” 

Alphonse kept his smile on, which only emphasized his forthcoming accusation. 

“Interesting that you say that you 'just' arrest the accused. That's a major responsibility, getting to decide who deserves to be arrested and who doesn't.” His eyes grew cold, though his smile stayed. “On that topic, have you arrested the police officer who punched my brother in the face yet?” 

The woman's face flushed. Al couldn't tell if this was in anger or in embarrassment. He could imagine her getting angry at Ed, for sparking the whole mess — but at the same time, the officer was the only one in the situation who had done anything wrong, and she would know that. He hoped she was embarrassed at her team’s conduct. 

“Yes,” she growled. “He's in the block of holding cells that Elric isn't in. The warden who stood by while it was happening is getting punished, as well. We're not in the business of abusing our prisoners.” 

“That's good to hear,” said Al, lightly. “Because, you know, I was beginning to wonder. There's certainly a crowd of people outside who think otherwise.” 

“Get the hell out of my office,” she snapped, grey eyes hard. “I don't need to hear this bullshit from you. If you won't go, I'll have you forcibly removed.” 

That was interesting: a little smile grew on his face. 

“Did I hit a nerve? Do you not like me talking about the police's criminal record?” he asked, finally putting his feet back on the floor and propping his chin up on laced fingers. “Arresting controversial political reformers, taking bribes left and right, abusing prisoners? Making people 'disappear'? Turning a blind eye to crimes within the military?” 

The tension continued to build in LaForet's body as she stood up straighter, rigid, weight distributed equally between both feet. She looked like she was physically restraining herself – though from what, Al couldn't be sure. He could guess, though. 

“Keep your mouth shut,” she snapped, her arms still crossed over her chest and fire in her eyes. She was not a woman to mess with lightly. 

“No, because you know what? I think you need to hear this,” Al said, finally standing up to walk around her desk and lean on the front of it, letting himself balance on the edge. From this height, he could look her straight in the eye. “I think you're embarrassed at what the police have become. I think you want your organization to be more than it is. I think you want it to represent _justice_ , not just law or the whim of the military.” 

The officer stared at him, not moving. 

“What the hell do _you_ know?” she said – her words, still sharp, held a bit less of an edge than before. 

“Not much,” admitted Al. “But I know right from wrong, and I know that holding my brother in here is wrong. And if you start suppressing the protesters outside, that would be wrong too.” He paused long enough to let that sink in. Her expression didn't change. “And I _think_ , although I don't know, that if you let my brother go you could probably help to right a lot of wrongs. This could be your way of making a stand for justice and fairness in a system that often has too little of both. You could start to rebuild the trust that the Amestrian people have lost in you. Let him go, Inspector. I promise you won't regret it.” 

The mask of her face betrayed none of her thoughts. She examined him, eyes moving across his face, studying every inch of him. It was almost enough to make him uncomfortable, but he didn't let himself back down. 

“Hm,” she said, finally walking around to the other side of her desk and sitting down in the chair. The other turned to watch her. 

“Think quickly,” he told her. “That mob may be entirely peaceful, or it may be too angry to stay that way for long. You're probably not going to want to find out the hard way.” 

She didn't miss a beat in replying: “Get your ass out of here, before I have _you_ arrested too, for breaking and entering. Don't think I didn't notice the transmutation marks on my door's lock.” 

That made Al laugh sheepishly. He stood, then turned properly and gave her a little bow. When he straightened again, he smiled at her. 

“I trust you to make the right decision, Chief Inspector LaForet,” he said. “Please don't betray that trust.” 

“Get out,” she said again, and Al turned to go, a smile coming to his lips as soon as she couldn’t see his face. That was fine by him: his departure did not come as a defeat. He had sown the seeds that he had meant to, and now all he had to do was wait. 

* 

“So, where are we going, exactly?” Alphonse asked, drumming his fingers together in his lap. He glanced at the buildings around him, distorted through the soft bend of water on the car windows, and decided that he had no idea where he was. 

The rain had started again in earnest not long after he had left the police station, and now the streets were once again swollen with water, a dangerous kind of urban beauty. In this kind of weather, Alphonse was actually quite grateful that he didn’t know how to drive, and therefore didn’t have to: General Mustang seemed to handle it well, though, as he handled everything. He kept his eyes directly on the road, scanning for the glare of headlights or the blur of oncoming traffic. 

“Actually, we’re going to see my mother,” Roy replied, a slight smile quirking the corners of his mouth. Al shot the other man a look of surprise: somehow, it had never even occurred to him that Roy Mustang had a mother, much less that he would ever meet her. It was such a… _normal_ thing to have, and General Mustang defied normalcy with every atom in his body. If the man had parents, then Al imagined that they would only exist as part of his suitably tragic back-story, one where his parents were police officers who died in a shoot-out with the mad gangster Yoren “Trigger Finger” Johnson when Roy was just an infant, and he was put in an orphanage, then bounced from foster home to foster home until he was old enough to get a job and put himself through the military academy, all so he could find the Trigger Finger and put him to justice. 

With effort, Alphonse wrenched himself from his fantasy, and managed to get out: 

“Oh.” A pause: _Quick, think of something to say. You’re not an idiot._ “I have to admit, I’m kind of surprised you have a mom. I kind of thought that you might have just stepped, fully-formed, out of the abyss, or something.” _Or maybe you_ **are** _an idiot,_ he thought, kicking himself mentally. _Why would you ever say that out loud?_

A deep belly-laugh followed that comment; Al flushed, and scrambled to say something else that might redeem himself. 

“I dunno,” Al said, rubbing his nose just for something to do and finding his face hot to the touch. “You just… don’t seem like the sort of person who’s ever just, like, been a kid, with a mom and a dad and family dinners and a puppy and playing baseball in the yard and stuff. I can’t even imagine that.” 

“Well, although I am no Cretan goddess, sprung as an adult from the head of my father,” Roy said, the air of amusement never leaving, “You are partially right. I did have quite an unusual childhood. The woman we’re going to meet is actually my foster mother, and she didn’t exactly give me what one might refer to as a ‘traditional’ upbringing.” 

Two questions warred within Alphonse then: one serious, the other much less so. But he would probably never get another chance to ask the more seriously, which was something to consider. Without much input from his brain, his mouth made a decision. 

“Foster mother? What happened to your parents?” he asked, then winced at the bluntness of his own question, his hands lacing tightly together in his lap. Although he knew better, some part of him still hoped that his theory about the gangster and stuff would be validated. 

Roy’s smile didn’t move, although his fingers tightened around the wheel of the car. He paused a long moment, as if considering whether to answer the question or not. 

“My father died when I was an infant,” he said, casually. “Tuberculosis, actually, or so I hear. He was the one who had always wanted children, and when he died, my mother took to drinking. She wasn’t ready to be a parent. When I was about five, my father’s sister came in to check on us and saw what was happening. She took me away to live with her, and that’s where I grew up. I haven’t seen my birth mother since. I think she was just grateful to be rid of me,” he said, with a short attempt at a laugh. 

“Oh.” Well, crap. He hadn’t really meant to dig up those kinds of memories. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.” He wondered, briefly, if Ed knew this: he was hardly the kind to pry, as he disliked talking about his own past enough that he wanted to give others the opportunity to avoid it, too. But did that mean that Al now knew more about Roy’s past than Ed did? He hoped not. 

“No, no, you’re fine,” the general said, looking over at the younger man and offering him a fond smile. “I know your curiosity would kill you eventually if you held it in. Both of you Elric brothers are like that.” 

This seemed to break the tension, for which Alphonse was grateful. 

“I guess we are, aren’t we?” he replied. 

Roy nodded. The windshield wipers sloughed rain off onto the hood of the car. The rest of the ride took a scant five minutes, punctuated by the occasional, absent chatter of two men mostly absorbed in their own thoughts. 

The car began to gradually slow: Roy parked on the side of the street, next to what looked like a little Cretan cafe; all of their outside chairs sat, stacked, against the little fence that marked its patio territory, rain pooling in the dip of the seats. A warm light glowed from the front window, although Al could see little of what was inside. 

“Is that where we’re going?” Al asked, curious: a cafe seemed an odd place to meet to talk about espionage stuff. It seemed to him like they could easily be overheard there, but what did he know? Maybe they had a secret back room or something. 

“No, no,” the general replied, with a laugh, as he put the car into park and rustled around in his glove compartment. “We’re going down _there,_ ” he said, pointing down the street: in the rain, the younger man couldn’t really see what he was pointing to. In response to Alphonse’s puzzled squint, the elder said: “Don’t worry, you’ll see it in just a moment.” 

He stepped out of the car and swung the opening umbrella over his head in one gesture. It made a whooshing noise, then popped into place, and he stepped around the side so he could protect Alphonse from the elements as he opened the younger man’s door. Al nodded his thanks, then followed the other man as he turned to leave, his long trench-coat flowing out behind him as he walked, like he was a character from a movie. He got distracted trying to figure out what made the man’s coat _do_ that that he almost crashed into the general’s back when he finally stopped. 

“Here we are,” he said, making a grand gesture upwards. “The Painted Lady.” Al followed the motion with his eyes until his gaze landed on the sign: the words he spoke were printed there, yes — right next to a drawing of lady with a robe that didn’t want to stay on her body and an unmistakably sultry gaze, absolutely unashamed of her intent. 

Alphonse colored right up to his ears. It took him only a few seconds of stunned silence for him to realize exactly what this was. 

“Wait.. Isn’t this… a _brothel?_ ” he whispered, voice refusing to come out any louder. “We’re not actually going to meet your mother, are we.” A sudden, strange thought arrested him, and all of the blush departed to leave his face white and bloodless. “Oh my god, is this some kind of coming-of-age thing or something? Are you going to try to make me h-have… with a —” 

He had heard of just such a thing happening in the military at other times: some older officers would take it upon themselves to take some of the younger, more innocent ones out for a night out on the town, to divest them of their virginity. He heard it was fairly common practice. But the General wouldn’t take part in anything like that — would he? 

Oh god, he absolutely would. 

The general just stood there with a smirk plastered across his face as he watched Alphonse pass through four of the five stages of grief in ten seconds or less. He ended the process, finally, on the “bargaining” stage, not yet ready to reach “acceptance.” 

“But… I have a girlfriend!” Al responded, taking an automatic step back and angling himself down the street to freedom as panic overcame him. Immediately, he remembered why he had been standing so close to the general in the first place — they had been sharing an umbrella, and he was now unexpectedly quite wet. This shocked him into changing his plans: he stepped back into the protective shade, but not before babbling, “Oh please, please don’t, I don’t want to, I’m saving myself — if you just let me go, I won’t say anything to anybody —” 

For some reason, this made the General burst into a sudden fit of laughter. 

This shocked Al nearly as badly as the realization of their location had; he wasn’t sure that he had ever seen Roy Mustang genuinely laugh before. Give a sardonic chuckle, yes; laugh _at_ someone, certainly. But never that full-throated, deep laugh, given just because he found something _funny._ He watched the other man, paralyzed, like a deer, until the laughter had stopped, replaced by a broad grin painted across the swath of Mustang’s face. 

“You’re nearly as adorable as your brother,” Roy said, but before Al could get all indignant, the elder kept going. “But don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.” Relief deflated Al’s distress, sudden as a popped balloon. “And I would never try to make you do anything you didn’t want to do.” 

“Oh,” replied Al, feeling like an idiot for the millionth time that day. He turned wide eyes back up to the sign again, then back down to the general. “So… this isn’t really a brothel?” he asked, hopefully. Maybe it was some kind of cover-up, a front or something. 

“Oh no, that part is completely true,” the man said with a chuckle, which just confused Alphonse more. He didn’t have long to worry about it, though, before the smile turned into a smirk and the eyebrows arched in amusement. “I’m just not going to make you use it. What’s this about ‘saving yourself,’ though?” 

Heat colored Alphonse’s face once again, and he looked down at the wet pavement to prevent himself from having to look at the general’s face. Had he really said that out loud? He couldn’t believe himself sometimes. 

“Nothing!” Al replied, with a nervous, high-pitched laugh that did nothing whatsoever to make him sound more convincing. “It was just something I said to get you off my back, haha, that’s all, really, so now that that’s cleared up weshouldgoinsidenowright?” he said, turning to stare round-eyed at the door in front of him, as if he had forgotten how to blink, a false smile hanging from his lips. 

“Is that so,” the general said, with deep amusement. “Nothing, is it?” But, thankfully, he left it at that, stepping forward to take the doorknob in hand and sliding the door open. But the relief that he didn’t comment further diminished when Al realized that he was probably just saving this juicy bit of blackmail for the opportune moment — like when his brother was around. 

“Yes!” he said, suppressing a groan of dismay as he followed Mustang inside. Warily, he took in his surroundings as he entered, not knowing what kind of depravity he would be subject to inside. For some reason, he imagined that a stuffed bear would be involved, although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what they would do with it. But, upon taking in the sight in front of him, he found that it looked quite different from his imaginary version, as most things seemed to. There were classy brown wooden tables everywhere, and a bar of the same material with elaborate carvings on it, all lit in the warm yellow glow of their electric lights — meant, he assumed, to simulate candlelight. All in all, it looked more like what he imagined a tavern would look like than a brothel. A bell attached to the door rang as they entered, and although the room in front of them had been empty as they entered, the sound seemed to summon a young woman. She wore jeans and a tight button-up vest that didn’t reach quite down to her pant line. The “v” in the front framed her bellybutton quite nicely, Al couldn’t help but notice: he chastised himself immediately for even looking, and turned his gaze forcibly up to her face. This was only momentary helpful, as she had thick waves of auburn hair that swept down past her breasts, and now he was staring at _those._

“Oh, Roy!” the woman called out, fairly well throwing herself across the room to wrap her arms around him and bury her face in his shoulder. That his arms went up to encircle her as well shouldn’t have surprised Alphonse, but it did. He found his embarrassment getting lost in a sudden, defensive anger. Who was this woman to Roy Mustang? Why were they hugging like that? “It’s been so long,” she said, pulling her face away from Roy’s shoulder to give the man a wide smile. “I keep hearing you’ve been by, but haven’t made time to see me,” she said, accompanying this with a full pout. 

“I’m so sorry, Rochelle. Things have been quite busy lately,” he said, smiling in return. “But I promise I’ll make it up to you sometime soon, when all this madness is over. How’s that?” 

“You’d better,” she said, delivering him a halfhearted punch to the shoulder. It was only then that she seemed to notice that the general was not alone: she pulled herself away from him to turn to Alphonse, with a look of delight that Alphonse found frankly quite nerve-wracking. “Oh, who’s _this?_ ” she asked, with an emphasis on the _this_ that seemed to imply she meant something by it. “This isn’t… the new boy-toy, is he?” she exclaimed, crossing the distance between them to put her hands on Al’s shoulders and look him directly in the eyes. “Boy-toy,” Al could only guess, meant Ed. He would not appreciate the nickname: Al was torn between telling her that she shouldn’t say that, for her own health and safety, and buying a ringside seat for the ensuing explosion. 

But he was also kind of confused: why would she get so excited about meeting him if she was Mustang’s secret paramour? Sweat began to bead on Al’s forehead, his upper lip; he hoped she wouldn’t notice. He was nervous, okay, he couldn’t help it — she was taller than he was and her boobs were really uncomfortably close to his face and they were really hard not to stare at. He wondered what they would feel like. 

“No, no — he’s not,” Roy interjected, before things could get any _more_ awkward. The girl — Rochelle — pouted again, and turned to Roy in her disappointment. “This is Edward’s brother. Rochelle, meet Alphonse Elric,” he said, waving an introductory hand at Al. She turned back to Al upon hearing this, finding him interesting once more now that he was somehow connected to Roy’s unknown lover. “Alphonse, meet Rochelle. She’s an old friend of mine,” he said, and this time it was Alphonse’s turn to let his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.” 

“Friend?” he asked, disbelieving, but trying not to let it show in his voice, for politeness’s sake. Apparently he did a very bad job, because both the woman and the general seemed to pick up on it immediately. 

“Yes, _friend,_ ” Roy replied, his reemphasis of the word softened by his obvious amusement; the woman just took her hands from Al’s shoulders, stepped back, and laughed. “Actually, she is an employee of my mother’s, and has worked with me on many a project over the years.” What… _kinds_ of projects? He held his breath in brief horror. 

“What, did you think we’re together or something? You really think I’d date _that?”_ she asked, jabbing a thumb in Roy’s direction — Mustang seemed to take the implication in good humor. “With all of his weird kinks and stuff? No thanks. I get enough of that at my job, I don’t really want to deal with it in my relationships, too.” 

At her… job? So she really was a prostitute, then. Despite the general’s assertions, he wasn’t sure he had quite believed it until that moment. Alphonse went pinker: he didn’t want to think about the general’s kinks, or hers, or think about what she might look like while she was doing said job, although he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of _project_ he had meant. Al stared at the ground, because the ground was safe. 

But hadn’t the general just said that she was an employee of his mother’s? But that couldn’t be — because that would mean — 

“Oh my god, your mother’s a brothel madam!” he said, turning to the general, surprise written all over his face, for confirmation. He might act like it sometimes, but he really wasn’t stupid, and as soon as he thought of it he could have kicked himself for not having realized it before. “You — you _grew up_ here?” he said in his bewilderment, putting all of the day’s conversation together. The general was absolutely correct: his upbringing _had_ been unusual, just not in the way Al had hoped. 

“I would like to say ‘born and raised,’ but unfortunately circumstances robbed me of one of those. So, just raised,” Roy said, pleasantly. “Rochelle started working here some time after I left, but I come back fairly frequently. We’ve known each other for — what, six, seven years now?” he said, directing this last part at Rochelle. 

“Seven,” she said, with authority: this seemed like an awfully long time to Al. She didn’t look like she could possibly be older than twenty-five. She must have become a prostitute at eighteen — or at least, been hired by his mother then. “And nice to meet you, Alphonse,” she said, extending a hand and adding a suggestive lilt to his name that made him feel like a rabbit in the hunter’s sights. 

“Uh, n-nice to meet you too,” he replied as he shook her hand, embarrassed and frustrated in equal measure. He _always_ got like this around pretty women, especially when they flirted with him. He just didn’t know how to deal with it — he always managed to end up making a fool of himself. 

“Oh, he’s _shy,_ ” she said, clapping her hands to her cheeks like a cartoon character, her smile of delight very real underneath. “How adorable.” 

“Alphonse thought I was bringing him here to let you have your wicked way with him,” Roy said, a wicked gleam to his eye. 

“Aw, is he disappointed?” she asked, bringing one hand down over her heart as if moved greatly by this. “Poor thing! I still could, if you wanted,” she said, to which Alphonse replied by backpedaling and putting his hands up in front of him, like a protective barrier. “My way is very, very wicked,” she added, fluttering her lashes at him. Alphonse only stopped his panicked flight when he ran into a table and nearly toppled over onto it. 

“No! Thank you! I mean, I’m fine!” he said, trying to add a dose of politeness to his terror. Her eyes shone with a great and dramatic pity: the last rational part of him suspected that she was probably in on the joke, but that didn’t really make him any more comfortable. 

“No, no Rochelle — nothing like that for Alphonse. He’s ‘saving himself,’ you see,” the general replied with a teasing smirk, and Al heard himself squeak in embarrassment — oh god suddenly he understood with greater clarity than ever before what it must have been like to be Edward, at the receiving end of all of Mustang’s barbed wit. Ed was right, the man _was_ dangerous. 

“Saving himself?” she asked, with a little laugh: she shook her head in wonder, her thick waves of ruddy hair bouncing with the motion. “Oh my god, too cute.” 

Alphonse’s ears began to overheat. He wanted to tell the general off for teasing him, but his embarrassment seemed to make his tongue its prisoner. 

Thankfully, in the end, he didn’t have to think of anything himself; the interruption of a voice into their merciless teasing saved him from a terrible fate. 

“You two torturing that poor boy?” asked the voice, raspy and deep, the kind of voice that gave no bullshit and took none, either. Everyone turned to where the voice was coming from: the wooden staircase, towards the back left of the large room. Al saw the woman’s feet first, in short-heeled black shoes with diamond-encrusted buckles below the hemline of a long, black dress. 

“Not torturing. Just teasing,” Roy replied, rotating his body to face her fully. In silence, Alphonse watched as the rest of the woman began to appear: thick-set, even round in places, she had the body of a person who had enjoyed life to its fullest, an impression only enhanced by the abundance of gold necklaces that hung down her chest and the white fur that swathed her shoulders. Her face, however, seemed at odds with the voluptuous indulgence indicated by her body: it was hard and square, with frown lines engraved deep into her skin. 

“Well, you two lay off of him,” she said, gruffly, as she took the last step down onto the floor. Alphonse watched her entry in wonderment: she didn’t just enter the room, she _owned_ it, from the moment she set foot there. If there were ever a human being who was a case study in the difference between demanding attention and commanding it, she was it. “Can’t you see the poor boy’s terrified?” 

The general chuckled. 

“Nice to see you too. He’s fine, it’s all in good fun. But I’m not sure if I’m hurt or not that you’ll defend him from teasing when I know you would never do the same for me.” 

_Oh my god._

“Well, of course not. You can take it,” she retorted, thus implying that Alphonse couldn’t. He let that go, though, because he hadn’t been doing a very good job of proving that he could, after all. “And Rochelle, you know better. Anyway, Roy-boy, you weren’t raised by wolves. You have no excuse for not having introduced me to your friend yet. I thought I’d taught you better manners than that.” 

_Oh my god, she **is.**_

**__**

“Ah, my apologies,” he said. “Introductions were the very next thing on my list. You just arrived a bit sooner than I had intended.” He extended a hand in Al’s direction, still facing the newcomer. “Madame Christmas, this is Alphonse Elric, the younger brother of Edward Elric.” He turned to Al. “Al, allow me to introduce Madame Christmas — also known as Chris Mustang. My mother.” 

Al took in the sight of the two, standing very nearly side by side: although they looked completely different, there was a certain unity of style or bearing that made the resemblance between them uncanny. There was no mistaking it: this was the woman who had raised Roy Mustang, and turned him into the man he was. 

So many things about him made so much more sense now. 

“It’s an honor to meet you, Madame,” Al replied; he stepped forward and extended a hand. She took it, a harsh smile curving one corner of her lips. 

“A pleasure,” Madame Christmas responded, giving their hands a firm shake before turning back to her son. “See? _This_ kid was raised right. That’s how you do it.” 

“Any deficiency in my upbringing is, I believe, _your_ doing, not mine,” Roy said, in his best prim voice. He had a very good prim voice. 

Madame Christmas gave Alphonse a sidelong look that may have even ventured into the conspiratorial. 

“Sometimes,” she confided in him, one hand on a hip, “you do your best as a mother, but your lessons just don’t take.” 

“I understand that,” Al returned, thinking of Edward and his godawful table manners — or anytime manners, for that matter. “And it’s definitely not your fault. My mom was wonderful, but my brother still acts like ‘etiquette’ is some new kind of exotic disease.” 

A deep guffaw ripped out from Madame Christmas’s mouth at this, and Roy also gave a great burst of laughter. Al smiled, surprised and pleased with himself: she didn’t seem like the sort of woman who laughed easily. It was much nicer to make somebody laugh on purpose than it was to make them laugh because they thought you personally were funny, or weird, or adorable, or any of those other things. 

“Is that so. No wonder he and my son get along so well,” the woman said. But before said son could give her an aggrieved response, she had continued on. “Anyway, glad you’re here, kiddo. We got a lot of work to do, or so I hear. Rochelle,” she added, turning her dark eyes to the younger woman, “you stay here and man the fort. We can’t have customers coming in and finding nobody to give their money to,” she said, and with the dry, raspy way she spoke, Al couldn’t tell if she was serious or joking. If she was joking, she had an impeccable deadpan. 

“Aww, but I wanna go be a part of whatever secret meeting you guys are having,” Rochelle said, directing a full pout in the General’s direction. “Roy just got here, too. Who knows when I’ll get to see him again?” The man quirked his lips up in her direction. 

“Never fear, my lady,” he said, a twinkle to his eye. “Although we must part for now, our separation will not be forever. I wouldn’t be robbed of your company for the world. Once all of this is over, I would be honored if you would let me take you out to the theater.” _No wonder he’s so good at getting dates,_ Al thought, thought not without some irritation: Roy wasn’t _supposed_ to be trying to get people on dates anymore. He wondered what Edward would do, if he had seen the exchange. Apparently, the general had noted the sudden sharpness in Alphonse’s expression, because he hastily added, “As a friend, of course,” which seemed like a bit of a hasty redaction but nevertheless made Alphonse feel a bit better about the whole thing. 

Rochelle laughed and put her hands on her hips. 

“Now, don’t you try charming me, Roy Mustang,” she said. “I know you too well for that to work. But I’ll take you up on that theater date sometime anyway.” She wrinkled her nose, as if in annoyance, but the smiling creases at the corners of her eyes gave her away. “Now you guys go to your secret meeting — it’s fine, I’m not jealous or anything,” she said, teasing. 

So apparently, Rochelle didn’t know the general’s reasons for bringing Al here, either; he wondered if her exclusion was for safety’s sake, or out of mere convenience. The two of them seemed like they knew each other well enough that imminent betrayal wouldn’t be a concern — and yet despite this, she was being kept out. Curiosity burned in him. 

“Don’t mind if we do,” said Madame Christmas, turning her back as she did; apparently, the woman was above social niceties and other such trivial things. As she began walking, Alphonse took off at a trot to follow, despite his feeling that the conversation had been left unfinished. She was not the sort of woman to be refused or denied. 

“It was nice meeting you, Rochelle,” he called out over his shoulder; she returned a “Likewise.” Within moments, they had crossed the room, Roy right behind him, and passed into a short hallway. With tiny, quiet steps, he followed her; although part of him was more embarrassed than words could convey that he was walking down the hall of a brothel _,_ another partalso kind of wanted to know if they were going to the place where all of the _sex_ stuff happened. His cheeks burned, and apparently Madame Christmas looked back just in time to see steam start rising from the tips of his ears, and she was probably quite a clever lady, because she understood right away. 

“Don’t worry, kid, we’re going someplace totally respectable,” she said, her face deadpan and her voice full of dry amusement. Then, almost but not quite to herself, she added, “You virgin-types are weird about some shit.” 

Alphonse colored, wishing that his sexual status wasn’t such an acceptable topic of conversation around here. 

“I wasn’t worried at all,” he he lied; she responded with a snort. She was not fooled. A change of topic was in order. “So, anyway!” he said, in what was probably the smoothest segue in all of history, “Is anybody ever going to tell me why I’m here?” Surely it wasn’t just because he was fun to tease, although he suspected that that was at least part of the reason.. Within moments, they had reached the room at the end of the hall, and Al followed Madame Christmas into it, Roy only a few feet behind. 

The woman pulled on the light-string at the center of the room, flooding the room immediately with a yellow warmth. The light, covered by a cheap paper lampshade, swung on a chain above a round wooden table which was large enough to seat four or perhaps five people, although there were only four chairs there. She turned to him, the light playing in the crevices of her face, and Al heard the door shut behind him. 

“My son brought you here because he thought we’d work well together,” she said, before pulling out a chair and sitting down in it, slowly. The first thought that went through Alphonse’s mind was, _oh my god, work well together **how?** _ before he quashed it. All of his ridiculous paranoia aside, there was no way that General Mustang brought him there to try to get him to join a brothel. That would just be beyond impossible. 

All the same, Al couldn’t help but watch her with a strange wariness. Roy laughed as he passed the younger man on the side, then sat down in his own chair. 

“Nothing like that, Alphonse,” Roy said, resting his elbows on the table and pressing his fingertips together. “You see, my mother is my unofficial chief of intelligence.” 

Alphonse blinked and frowned, taken for a moment by surprise — but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. 

“I see,” he responded, taking a few steps forward and pulling a chair out to claim it as his own, then sitting down. “So you brought me here to share the information I told you I had, so you didn’t have to be the middleman?” 

“Exactly,” said Roy, although Al could barely hear it, because Madame Christmas began at once to speak over him. 

“What, you mean you didn’t tell the kid what I did before you brought him here?” she asked her son: the snort she gave afterward could have been amusement or annoyance, or maybe both. “So that’s why he looked so mortified. You’re one evil-minded sonovabitch sometimes, you know that?” she asked, with a grin that showed teeth. 

Roy laughed and put his hands up, in the manner of one who is guilty as charged. 

“I just couldn’t resist,” he said, with a faux-apologetic tone. “And it was really quite funny. Wasn’t it, Alphonse?” Roy said. 

“Maybe from your point of view,” Al responded, trying to sound good-humored but probably coming off a bit indignant. He turned back to Madame Christmas, who, at least, seemed to take him kind of seriously. “But anyway, if we’re done having open Alphonse season, maybe we should get down to business?” 

“What makes you think it will ever be over?” the general asked, a twinkle in his eye; Al groaned, but the other man continue. “But for the moment, I suppose you have earned a respite. I believe you had some information to share with us, and we, I’m quite sure, have some other things to share with you.” 

“You bet we do,” came a voice, irritable, from behind Alphonse: he jumped in his seat and spun to see the source of it: a fairly young, startlingly pretty girl with brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail and eyes that matched had somehow materialized behind him, where there was no door. 

“Oh! I’m sorry. I, uh, didn’t see you there,” Al said, his surprise coloring his voice. He jumped to his feet and offered her a bow, feeling silly the moment he did but also not knowing what else to do. “I’m Alphonse Elric,” he declared, and straightened up again. 

“I know,” she said, and that was still the _weirdest_ way a person could possibly reply to an introduction. “I’ve seen you before, though first time we’ve actually met. I’m Anne,” she said with a wave. He noted, to his surprise, that she was wearing one of the military-issue black undershirts he had become so familiar with over the years. “No last name, although the government paperwork will tell you it’s Smith. You didn’t see me before because I wasn’t here,” she said, amused. “Hey, Roy,” she added, as she walked around the table to stand beside the man, then ruffled his hair, looking impossibly pleased with herself. Al watched this with astonishment, because Roy made an indignant face, then put a hand up to smooth his normally impeccable hair back into place, but that didn’t seem to phase her at all. Alphonse had never seen anybody take the kind of liberties with General Mustang that these women did — not even his brother, and they were _dating._

“Nice to see you too, Anne,” the man muttered, and she laughed. Then, she walked over to sit down in the chair she had claimed as her own. As she did, she tilted it back on two legs, just like Edward did. Alponse had to restrain himself from telling her that she was going to fall and break something — he wasn’t _her_ brother, it wasn’t his place. 

“Oh. Well, if you weren’t here, then where were you?” he asked, feeling stupid when she laughed; he turned again to survey the back of the room, to see if there was anything he had missed. There was not, or else he just missed it again a second time. “And how on earth did you get here?” he asked, turning back around to face her again, his brow furrowed. Madame Christmas stood by the table, her hands on her hips, and surveyed her domain. 

“Trade secret,” Anne replied with a flash of teeth, and Al wondered if she was just really good at staying hidden, or if there were maybe secret passages all through the building or something. He really wanted there to be secret passages. “And as for where I was up until this moment, we’ll get to that in a minute,” she said, though once again she sounded quite unhappy about it. 

“Actually, now would be a perfectly good time for you to explain everything,” Madame Christmas interrupted, apparently deciding that her people were arranged to her satisfaction, then sat down in her own chair. Upon making herself comfortable, she pulled a cigar out of her coat pocket and brought it to her lips. 

The girl flinched to hear that. 

“Can’t I even have a drink first?” she groaned, letting the front two legs of her chair slam into the floor and slumping over the table, one arm thrown out dramatically, as if she was simply too exhausted to sit up any longer. 

“You know the rules, Anne,” Madame Christmas said, a clear reprimand. “We’re working. Alcohol and this kind of work don’t mix.” A lighter appeared in the woman’s hand, and she struck a flame on the cut end of the cigar. When she was satisfied, she inhaled deeply, making the embers at the end glow brighter for a moment. 

“I know, I know,” Anne sighed, hauling herself back up into a sitting position again — or a semi-sitting position, anyway. She kept her chin propped up on her palm, fingers curled in towards her cheek. “I just thought you might make an exception today.” 

The look Madame Christmas gave to her employee told Al that she was not the sort of woman who made exceptions. She didn’t even deign to respond. 

“Don’t we have any other shit we can go over beforehand?” the younger woman said, her eyes wide and pleading. “I just want a couple of minutes to relax before having to go straight into Inquisition Hour.” Madame Christmas was less than moved by her girl’s unsubtle begging, so Anne turned her pout first on Roy, then Al. Against his will, Al found himself moved by the watery desperation in her gaze, and heard himself say: 

“I’d be happy to share my information first, if that would make you feel better,” Al said, and apparently it was the right thing to say because the woman lit up like a candle. 

“Would you? Thank you so much!” she said, the frown she had been wearing melting away into a beautiful smile. Even as he blushed at her enthusiastic praise, he couldn’t help but wonder — perhaps uncharitably, and he felt bad for thinking it — if it was genuine, or if it was just part of the persona she practiced to get men to like her. He supposed he would never know the answer. Anne turned to Roy’s mother, and asked, “Is that alright with you, Madame?” 

Madame Christmas shrugged, a large rolling motion that seemed to use her whole body. 

“Guess I don’t care, as long as we get to everything.” 

“Great,” Anne said, leaving no room for argument or further discussion, then turned her eyes back on Al. “So, go on.” 

Al wished very much that he had known to bring all of the documentation he had made of his research, to better explain it to everybody. Instead, he simply began by describing the work he had been doing for the past several weeks, then moving on to more immediately relevant information, like how he had found out that money had been trickling out of Weimar’s account and into Harriet’s, in amounts too large and too similar to be coincidental. 

“But there are legitimate companies listed as the source of this income,” Roy’s mother said, her eyes glittering in the light from her cigar. “Can you prove that it’s dirty money?” 

“Well, actually,” Al said, feeling a little swell of pride as all three of his companions seemed to perk up at those words, “Yes, I kind of can.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I spoke with the owners of most of the listed businesses, and they seemed to have no knowledge of any of it. They said they had never dealt with Harriet before. In fact, I got a couple of the owners to sign affidavits to that effect,” he said, offering a little, proud smile. Madame Christmas sucked in air loudly, and clenched the cigar between her teeth as she grinned. Roy gave him a pleased look and nod of approval that Al would treasure forever. 

It hadn’t been easy to get them to sign, but Al had managed, with all of the careful social skills he had spent a lifetime developing. As for the affidavits themselves, they were all at home, transmuted into a safe inside of a wall, just in case anybody decided they were going to go snooping around. 

“But it could be a cover-up,” Anne pointed out, head cocked to the side as her palm held it up. “They could just be lying.” 

“Well, yes, they _could_ be,” Al said, mostly just to be polite, “but I don’t see why they would be. The names of those businesses on the financial reports wereintended to cover up for the fact that Weimar was giving Harriet the money. If Weimar wanted the story to be consistent, he would have told those men to say that yes, they had given the money to the reporter, for some job or another. Clearly, Weimar never even talked to them.” 

“Because the more people he told about his immoral money transfers, the more likely it was that someone was going to put the pieces together, and that said someone would rat him out,” Madame Christmas mused, and Alphonse nodded vigorously. 

“Yes, exactly what I was thinking,” he replied, lacing his fingers together on the table. “And he probably didn’t think that not telling them would be a problem, because he didn’t think anybody would connect him to this whole mess in the first place, much less that they would be able to gain access to his financial records.” 

“So he’s stupid _and_ complacent,” Roy’s mother said, a sneer in her voice, though her expression remained more or less dispassionate. It was good to hear emotion in her voice, at least: she wasn’t entirely unmoved by this whole mess, even if she acted that way. “Good to know.” 

“This is most excellent news. Thank you, Alphonse. Good work,” Roy said, and Al smiled. 

“Man, I wish I had gotten _that_ job,” said Anne, a pout on her lips. “Sounds like way more fun than mine.” 

Al guessed that whatever she had been tasked to do had not gone well, and that was the reason for her occasional minor hostility. He didn’t hold it against her; this was a difficult situation to be in. 

“Don’t be jealous, Anne. You’ll have your turn,” Roy reprimanded her, though he did so gently. She made a face at him that was improbably juvenile, but also kind of cute. 

“I’m only _kinda_ jealous,” the girl replied with an easy laugh. “I just wish I had gotten as much done as Al has,” she said, more than half admiring. A flush rose to Al’s cheeks at the compliment, however it was meant. 

“You and me both,” Madame Christmas deadpanned, and all three of the rest of them flinched at her bluntness. Al couldn’t even tell if she was serious or not. 

“Ouch,” Anne said, putting a hand to her chest as if she had been shot.. “That was brutal. Can’t you at least wait until I’ve told you what happened before you mock me?” 

“I’ll wait thirty seconds,” the older woman replied, her cigar burnt down to half its original length. “You better get talking.” 

“I suppose, if I must,” Anne replied, with a dramatic sigh; but immediately after, she frowned, her earlier reluctance back in spades, then turned back to the rest of the table. She was an interesting person; Al would have expected someone less… mercurial, to be doing such a delicate job. She never seemed to stay in one emotional state for more than a few minutes, which he would have guessed would be a disadvantage. And yet, it didn’t actually seem to affect her work: he imagined that she never would have been offered this assignment if she wasn’t extremely good at what she did. “So, I’ve been on a mission for a bit now, as everybody’s probably gathered. A couple of days ago, Madame Christmas sent me out to go seduce General Weimar.” 

Apparently, the shock that Alphonse felt at hearing those words showed on his face, because Anne laughed and took a moment to address him. 

“You look surprised, kid,” she said, and Al tried not to be offended at being called “kid.” “It’s perfectly normal, in our line of work. You seduce somebody, you’re way more likely to hear them say something inconvenient, or get access to papers that you otherwise wouldn’t have, stuff like that.” 

Alphonse nodded slowly, taking it all in. It made sense, although he had never quite thought about it before. He supposed it was ruthlessly efficient, if you didn’t mind that sort of thing. 

“I see,” he said, less because he was done thinking than to signal to her that she should continue. 

“So anyway, we arrange a vacation for Weimar’s normal secretary, then our guy in the secretarial pool assigns me to the general’s office to take over. Smooth as silk up through there,” she said, tossing her curly brown ponytail as if to shake it behind her shoulders, though all she ended up doing was making it bounce and shine in the light. “So I show up as some chick named Marielle Summers, do my secretary job, wait for Weimar to come in. When he does, he doesn’t even _notice_ me,” she says with some vague irritation, and Al wonders how long it’s been since she hasn’t been the center of attention for some man she wanted to sleep with. “I’ve never seen a military officer less interested in the pretty temp he got gifted with for a couple of days.” 

Madame Christmas raised an arched eyebrow. 

“You don’t sound like you’re building up to a happy ending,” she said, voice dry and rough, like sandpaper. She took another deep breath through her cigar and exhaled a cloud of smoke through her nose. Watching this, Alphonse finally understood the strange quality of her voice; though he had yet to hear her cough, he would bet ten thousand cenz that she had a bad one, born from a lifetime of smoke harrying her lungs. 

“Not exactly,” she mumbled, scratching at her chin, all full of annoyance and embarrassment. “Or no, I guess. He absolutely was not interested in what I was offering.” 

Madame Christmas looked even more displeased than usual at this, but she said nothing, at least not yet; instead, she took another long drag of her cigarette; the embers glowed brighter for that brief moment, carving her face in an eerie orange and deepening the shadows that plagued her. She exhaled the plume in a wreath around her head. 

“So tell us,” she finally said, her eyes narrowed and critical, “What did you do? What techniques did you use?” 

The girl flushed and stared at the table. Madame Christmas’s disapproving stare could make even hardened soldiers quake in their boots — and it had, many a time, Al imagined. Anne seemed to be taking it pretty well, all things considered, though. 

“Well, I was pretty direct about it,” she mumbled, looking at the floor to protect herself from that stare. “Yesterday, I brought him coffee, then gave him a shoulder rub ‘cause he was acting super tense. He seemed to be into it. Usually, y’know, men see shoulder massages as come-ons,” she added, for Alphonse’s benefit. The young man nodded, trying to look thoughtful when he was really just surprised — he couldn’t believe he was actually having this conversation. “So I was surprised when he just said thanks and basically sent me on my way. I came back today — it was raining really hard early this morning, remember? And he was all wet and stuff, so he wanted new clothes. I brought ‘em to him, and then, when he seemed to be responding pretty well, went to go take the wet clothes off of him. He freaked and kicked me out,” she said. There was a silence around the table, and she scowled. 

“What?!” the girl said, more an exclamation of challenge than an actual question. She crossed her arms over her breasts, defensive. “I was in a hurry! It wasn’t like I had a month to work him over or anything — the trial is in like a week. And more or less that same approach has worked on a hundred men like him in the past. Mostly it would be more effort to keep them _out_ of my pants.” 

Madame Christmas sighed, a long and intentional sound. 

“That was stupid, Anne. I thought you were better than that,” she said. “You shoulda been more subtle.” 

“If I had been more subtle, I don’t think he would have noticed me from a fly on the wall,” she shot back, her ponytail swaying in the force of her vehement rhetoric. “He didn’t look at me, not once — not even when I was about six inches from his dick and on my knees in front of him.” She paused and frowned, and when she spoke again, she was sullen and defensive. 

“To be honest, I’m pretty sure there was something else going on.” 

Madame Christmas arched her eyebrow. 

“Oh? And what would that be?” she asked, sounding as unimpressed as ever a person was. 

“Well,” Anne began, chewing on the corner of her lip. “Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s gay.” 

* 

Roy Mustang choked on his drink. 

“ _What?_ ” he said once the coughing had died down, so shocked that he couldn’t manage much else. Across the table, Alphonse listened, wide-eyed. The younger man seemed stunned to speechlessness. 

“Don’t you go giving me excuses for failing at your job, missy,” the elder woman snapped, tapping her cigar on the ashtray and scathing her employee with an uncompromising look. 

“I’m not!” Anne shot back, looking predictably offended. “I’ve handled guys like him before, you know I can do it.” She shrugged, a difficult action with her arms crossed. “Normally I’d just figure that I rushed it and blew the chance — if that were the case, I would tell you to send somebody else, but that’s not what happened. It was just different,” she said, and sparklers began to go off in Roy’s brain — slow at first, but gaining momentum. “You get a sense for that sort of thing eventually when you work in this business,” she said, for Alphonse’s benefit. “But he wasn’t behaving like he was interested at all — or even like he was trying to stop himself from being interested. At first, he seemed confused by my come-ons, and then once he realized what I was trying to do, he seemed irritated, then spooked. He flipped when I so much as touched him. If I only had a hundred cenz left, I’d bet it on him being gay.” 

This declaration silenced the whole table. 

After a moment, Madame Christmas let out a long, thoughtful, “Hm.” 

Roy, clutching his glass in a vice grip, bent double over the table and began to laugh. 

The laughter wracked him like a disease, sending tremors of hilarity through him as tears came to his eyes. It wasn’t until he opened his eyes to see Alphonse staring at him like he had gone mad that he even tried to get hold of himself again. 

He wiped the wetness from his eyes with the back of his hand, and let out one last great guffaw before he straightened up again, and looked at the people surrounding him, although he could not repress his bitter smile. His mother gave him an impenetrable look. 

“What’s so funny?” she asked, although the corner of her own lips quirked up as she said it, as if Roy’s laughter were genuinely infectious. 

“Everything,” Roy replied, leaning back in his chair. “It’s just — it’s so ironic. And yet, it also makes perfect sense.” 

“Does it?” Madame Christmas asked, and not because the gears weren’t turning in her head. 

“Of course. A severely closeted gay man channeling his frustration into homophobia? He wouldn’t be the first. Also, he’s been married — to a woman, mind you — for maybe eight years. I’ve met her, we had coffee together. Lovely woman, deserves better than life stuck at home as a housewife.” The thoughts kept tumbling around in his head as he fought to make sense of them, to sort the pieces into their appropriate places and come out with the solution to this puzzle. “But she made a comment or two over the course of that afternoon that implied to me that she really wanted children. And yet, after eight years of marriage, nothing. At first I wondered if he was infertile. Now, I wonder…” 

He let that sentence drift off: everyone in the room was smart enough to grasp the implication without forcing him to make lurid guesses about the other man’s sex life aloud. 

After a moment, Alphonse cleared his throat. He had been silent for so long that this quite startled everyone. 

“And maybe,” he said, slowly, contemplating, “he’s jealous.” 

“Go on,” Roy said, lacing his fingers into a steeple in front of his mouth, his elbows propped on the table. Alphonse looked around the group, as if trying to ascertain his place within it. Then, he wet his lips and began to speak. 

“Well, think about it. If we assume that Miss Anne’s analysis is correct, then he married a woman even though he’s gay, right? I’m sure it was a lot more complicated than this, but I bet he married her at least in part in order to deflect suspicion. He must have thought that after a certain age, if he hadn’t married, people might begin to wonder why he hadn’t. And he didn’t want anybody to think anything bad about him, because he’s ambitious and didn’t want anyone to have reason to try to keep him from his goals.” 

The general nodded. This made perfect sense — he himself had begun to feel the pressure to marry a pretty young woman years ago, and not just from Hughes. Weimar, being older, had probably been feeling it for much longer. Alphonse continued on. 

“And so I would bet that maybe he felt really bitter about having had to marry a woman for the sake of appearances, but he put up with it because he thought it was necessary. But then, _you_ came along, in a not-quite-public but certainly not secret relationship with my brother, and it didn’t seem to be hurting you politically. So he wanted to tear you down for it, to judge you for it like he thought he would have been judged if he had tried to be in a relationship with a man. And I imagine that some part of him, though it might be deeply buried, also wanted what you had. Frustrated jealousy leads to bitterness and rage. So we find ourselves in the situation we’re in today,” he said, his hands clasped on his lap. 

A moment of silent contemplation followed. 

“…You’re smart, aren’t you,” Anne said, looking him up and down, as if she were seeing him in a new light. His earlier blush returned full force, and he hiked his shoulders up, looking a bit uncomfortable. 

“…Um, thank you?” he said, as if he weren’t sure whether she was complementing him or making fun of him — or maybe she was just making an observation. “People are easy to understand, if you take a minute or two to think about things from their perspective,” he added, his eyes downcast. “Not that it excuses what he’s been doing, but I feel kind of bad for him.” 

Roy almost laughed again at that, although he felt kind of guilty himself for finding anything about the situation funny. Of course Al felt bad for him. Alphonse was the kind of person who could genuinely have sympathy for anyone, no matter what they had done. 

“…You’re a better person than I am, Alphonse,” Roy said, with a slight smile and a warmth to his tone. “I don’t have any sympathy left for the likes of him, I’m afraid.” The younger man returned the smile, wry. 

“In your situation? I wouldn’t expect you to,” he said. A silence followed, as they all tried to collect their thoughts. 

“All feelings aside,” Madame Christmas finally interrupted, most of her considerable weight resting on her left elbow where it took up a slice of the table. “This is a very interesting development. Thanks, Anne. I was wrong. You did good,” she said, and Anne fairly glowed: Roy knew from experience that his mother’s praise was sparse and hard-earned. “Now, I think that this turn of events necessitates us taking a slightly different tack,” she said. 

“Oh?” asked Alphonse, turning to her. 

“We want to stay away from obvious surveillance, like breaking into his office, for as long as possible. So none of that for the moment, unless this proves entirely unworkable. But I have another idea.” She paused, breathed out through her nostrils, grey swirling out from them again. “Now, this could be brilliant, or it could backfire terribly, but it’s worth a shot.” Her smile was sharp on her lips. “It’s not like my only employees are girls, you know,” she said, and glass shards glittered in her eyes as she spoke. 

* 

Within moments of sitting down at his desk once again, Roy received an unexpected telephone call. His hand flew out to the receiver and brought it to his ear; he tried to force himself to relax back into the warming leather of his chair. 

“Hello, Mustang here,” he said. The clouds from the earlier rain had begun to disappear, and faint sunlight filtered through the window onto his desk. 

“Hello, General. It’s Al,” came the voice from the other side, which surprised Roy more than a little bit: it hadn’t yet been thirty minutes since he had dropped the younger man off at his house, and now he needed to talk again so soon? Mustang dearly hoped it wasn’t about anything bad, although he wasn’t holding out much hope. 

“Alphonse,” the general said, swiveling his chair around so he could watch the parting clouds. “I’m flattered that you missed me this soon. I had no idea we were so close,” he said, in his dry, teasing sort of way. 

His comment earned him a laugh, brighter and more cheerful than he had expected. 

“You know, I had some important news for you, but if you’re just going to tease me, I guess I can take it somewhere else,” he said, with the air of someone who isn’t terribly bothered. Roy chuckled in return. 

“I deeply apologize,” Roy said, crossing his legs and smiling out the window. “I shall never tease anyone ever again,” he declared, in a tone of deepest solemnity. “So, what did you need to tell me?” 

“Liar,” Al responded, cheerily. “But that’s okay. I thought you’d probably want to know that I just got a call from police headquarters. They’re letting Brother out of jail,” he said; Roy’s heart lifted to hear those words, and his stomach flew and twisted, as if he had been climbing stairs and missed a step. For some reason, he truly had not been expecting to hear that — not this soon, or maybe not ever. 

Perhaps Madame Christmas was right: he really was turning into a pessimist. Despite everything that had been done to get Edward out of that cell, he knew that he had subconsciously been preparing himself for the worst. 

“Already?” he asked, when his mind had righted itself enough to attempt language once again. “That’s wonderful news.” 

“Yeah. So, I was thinking — do you want to go get him? I mean, you’re the only one of us with access to a car and all… And besides, after all of this, I’m sure you’d like some alone time together,” he added, perhaps a tad suggestively. 

Roy’s heart went out to Al upon hearing that. He really was the least selfish person that Roy knew. The younger Elric probably wanted nothing more than to go and let his brother out himself, to make sure that the other man was really alright; and yet here he was, giving up the opportunity without so much as a second thought. The most incredible part was that the younger man probably didn’t even feel a moment’s remorse about it. 

“It’s very kind of you to offer,” Roy said, because it was. “But, are you sure? You don’t want to talk to Edward yourself for a while?” 

He knew from his conversations with both young men that the brothers hadn’t yet really gotten to talk about any of the things that had happened recently — a brief exchange through jail bars and one short telephone call had been the sum total of their interaction since Al had found out about what had happened that previous Friday evening. Part of him, at least, was probably dying to talk about it. 

He was fairly certain that the elder brother wasn’t quite so eager to have that conversation, though. Most likely, what Edward needed the most right then was quiet support, unconditional and unassuming, not forced therapy sessions in the form of long conversations with friends and family. Alphonse probably knew it, too. Maybe that was part of the reason why he was letting Roy take over for the moment. 

“Of course I want to see him,” Al replied, brightly. “But there’ll be time for that after. I don’t need to do it right this very instant, you know?” he added, even though Roy knew that the younger man had been worried sick about his brother and would probably spend the whole evening waiting anxiously by the door for his brother’s arrival. 

All the same, he wasn’t about to turn down Alphonse’s generous offer. Roy had missed Edward fiercely himself, with a longing that was at least half concern; although he would never admit it aloud, he actually could use some time with Edward, to gain some reassurance that their relationship wasn’t broken beyond repair, that Edward wasn’t hurt beyond Roy’s capacity to heal. 

“You’re very kind,” he said; before Alphonse could reply with something modest, Roy continued, and got to his feet. “I’ll start heading to the police station, then. Thank you, Alphonse.” 

“Not a problem,” Al responded. “Tell my brother hello for me.” 

“I certainly will.” 

* 

The shrill sound of shrieking hinges broke through the silence of Edward’s cell so suddenly and with such vicious force that Ed only barely stopped himself from jumping visibly. After several days of this, he should be used to the piercing sound, but somehow it managed to get him every time. 

“Y’know, you really should do something about that noise,” he said, to whoever was coming in. “A little oil’s all you need, it’s not hard. Your door sounds like a dying cat.” 

The laugh that warmed the room at that was familiar; Edward sat up in bed, a smile spreading across his face despite himself. 

“Although I am inclined to agree, I have neither a desire nor the authority to go around fixing other people’s hinges,” Roy said, looking more at ease than Ed had seen him in a very long time. A police officer followed behind him at a safe distance, and as soon as they were through, shut the door behind them. It squeaked just as badly the second time around. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said to Roy, although the confrontational words were softened by his pleased expression. “You really must be bored at work, if you have time to come visit me here constantly.” Normally, he might have made some kind of comment about his lover being useless — but before he could make that particular mistake, he remembered that the man had recently been relieved of all of his duties as a general. Frankly, a joke like that might hit just a bit too close to home; he stopped it before the words came out. 

“I could always leave, if you want me to go do something more useful with my time,” Roy replied, amused. 

“Nah. You’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me all day,” Edward said, swinging his feet around to place them on the floor; and though he said the words in a deliberately facetious tone, they were also very much true. Roy raised an eyebrow in curiosity as he crossed the floor to stand in front of the cell door. 

“Interesting to hear you say that. I thought that the near-riot that’s been happening on the police station stairs would be at least slightly more interesting than my arrival,” he said, casually, as if he was talking about their menu at dinner. 

This surprised Edward: this was the first he had heard of any such thing. 

“A riot?” he asked, brow furrowing as he tried to put the pieces together. 

“Not quite. But nearly.” He paused, and focused Edward in a look so fond that Ed had to look away, the color rising in his cheeks. “Mostly just an angry mob, infuriated by your imprisonment and subsequent treatment, come to make their indignation known,” he added. 

Edward’s smile broadened into a grin as he heard this, looking properly up at his lover. 

“Really,” he said. “That’s interesting, and good to year. But yeah, no, I never heard.” 

“Well, now you know,” the general replied, and with his right hand gestured for the police officer next to him to come forward. He laid his hand out flat, and the officer, with a disgruntled look, placed the key ring into his hand. Edward frowned: he wasn’t sure he quite understood. “You should be grateful to them. It’s only because of them that I’m allowed to do this,” he said, and slipped the key into the lock, clicking it open. 

The door swung open and Roy stepped through; excitement or nerves made blood thrum hard through Edward’s neck. His mouth dried, and he swallowed in the hopes of wetting it again. 

“What?” Edward asked, like a total idiot, because the copper tang of nervousness in his mouth made the search for words difficult and goddammit, he was _better_ than this, he _was._ He wasn’t the sort of person who spooked at his own fucking shadow, or at the entirely innocent entrance of his lover into his room.He got to his feet without even thinking about it, his cuffed hands in front of him, blocking the empty space between the two men. 

“They’re letting you go,” Roy said, a smile wide on his face. “You’re free.” He came to a stop about a foot in front of Edward: something about those words, combined with the warm familiarity of the man’s presence, made Edward feel bold again. He flashed white teeth, heated and victorious. 

“It’s about time,” he said, then thought of something. “So, does that mean that I’m off the hook entirely, no trial, or that I’m just out of jail till then?” 

“It looks like the city’s not going to press charges — at least, that’s what Chief Inspector LaForet told me. It looks like Harriet will have to do it himself, if he wants it done. He may be too busy for that at the moment — or we’ll hope, anyway. If he does, then hopefully if you plead guilty, you can bargain your sentence down to strenuous community service.” 

Edward made a face. Why should he have to be out sweeping up trash or whatever the fuck it is they made you do in community service when he could be doing so much _more_ good someplace else, like back at the lab? 

“Is saving the life of everybody in this whole goddamn city — maybe even the whole country — not enough community service for these fucks?” he groused, though without venom. He’d do it if he had to. He’d complain the whole time, but he’d do it. 

“The people mobbing the stairs seem to think it was,” Roy pointed out, with a smile he reserved only for Edward. Pride welled up in the younger man, along with no small measure of pleased embarrassment. 

“Well, whatever,” he said, rather than actually acknowledge the compliment. “I’m gettin’ out, and that’s all that matters right now.” He grinned and brought his wrists up to offer them to the other man. “Y’wanna do something about these?” he asked, nodding to the cuffs. 

The sight of the cuffs in front of him, and Roy standing beyond that, shocked him with its sheer familiarity: a warm shiver ran down his spine and lodged itself in his gut, growing there in a way that was both pleasant and distinctly uncomfortable. Suddenly, the shackles seemed less like an inconvenience, and more like… 

“My pleasure,” said Roy, interrupting the drift of Edward’s thoughts. He shook himself from his trance, resolutely ignoring the simmering warmth in his loins. The keys flashed up, and then suddenly there was a _click._ One cuff popped open; Roy did the same to the other, watching Edward carefully for any kind of reaction. Although Ed’s breathing quickened, apparently the man was pleased by whatever it was he saw, because he paused for a moment to give ed a slight smile before carefully, lovingly, working the shackles off of his lover’s wrists. Once off, he simply let them fall to the floor. Neither bothered to even look, much less to pick them up. Instead, Ed watched, enraptured, as the man ran soothing fingers across the raw, red indentations that the restraints had left. 

The general turned the blonde’s hands over, palms up, and stroked gentle thumbs across those marks on the sensitive insides of his wrists. Ed shivered; the world around them fell away, no larger than the space it took to allow two bodies to share this moment. The track of fingers there stung, just slightly, just enough to let him feel it, to make sure he knew it was _real._ The breath he took shuddered, as if he had forgotten how to do it properly: all of the nerves in his wrists were running on overdrive, oversensitive, and each soft touch burned a trail of fire into his skin. 

“I’ve missed you,” Roy said seriously, the pads of his thumbs still teasing across the marks. Edward’s ears heated up, and, unable to take it anymore, he tugged his wrists out of Roy’s hands. 

“Oh my god, you’ve seen me every day since I got in here,” Ed replied, rubbing his own wrists to make the sensation of Roy’s fingers on him less immediate, less pressing. “You really can’t get along without me for even a day. Needy son of a bitch,” he added, happily. “You need a fuckin’ hobby, is what you need.” 

“But I do have a hobby,” Roy practically purred, his lashes fluttering down to leave his eyes half-lidded. “ _You’re_ my hobby,” he added, in case there was a question as to what he meant. 

“Down, boy,” Edward replied, which, judging by the flash of the general’s eyes and the quirk of his lips, he seemed to find amusing. “We’re still out in public, remember?” 

“That didn’t seem to bother you a couple of days ago, when you had my fingers in your mouth,” Roy said, voice low and full of meaning, still wearing that same goddamn smirk. Sometimes, Ed just wanted to punch his stupid arrogant face in — but his eyes were locked straight on Edward’s, and the younger man couldn’t seem to find the will to move at all.“In fact, I might even go so far as to say you liked it,” he said, rumbling, too quiet for the guard to hear. 

“Sh-shut up,” said Edward, before coloring a deep red, mortified to note his own brief stutter. Roy’s eyes opened wide as his smile as he heard that, predatory and delighted. He could smell his prey weakening. “Goddammit, I hate you.” Summoning up all of his willpower, he broke the connection of their stare and stormed forward, brushing past his lover. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before I get another assault accusation on my record,” he snarled, shoulders high and head bent forward as he stomped past the guard. 

“And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Roy replied, smarmy as ever. The man’s uniform rustled as he turned around to follow Edward: he heard a jangle of the keys that probably meant Roy was giving them back to the guard. “They probably wouldn’t let you off so easily a second time,” he added, just to needle Ed more. 

“Yeah, probably not,” Ed snapped, shoving the door open with both hands, his elbows straight. He didn’t know why he had gotten so angry all of a sudden; things had been going so well, and then, without warning, it was like he had flipped some kind of internal rage switch. It probably had something to do with Roy harassing him; sometimes the man’s teasing really hit him in a soft spot. Funny, though: this time, he couldn’t think what the soft spot was. 

The guard hurried forward, probably intent on getting ahead of Edward so that he could escort them out, act like he was in control of this situation: but Ed, his knees locked like an angry cat, sped up in turn, stomping out into the main part of the police station ahead of the guard. He wasn’t about to let some fuck have the upper hand, here. 

The station itself wasn’t quite as busy as it had been the last time he had been out here, but there was a distinct air of unease hanging above everything that hadn’t been there the day before, though the murmur of human conversation and the ring of telephones remained constant. 

This time, though, it was different; everybody stared at him as he passed; he glared forward resolutely, definitely not looking at them or analyzing their facial expressions, because he didn’t care what they thought, goddammit, and didn’t want them to think he did. Through the corners of his eyes, he noted that there was something akin to awe written across many of their faces, though, which wasn’t so bad. But that wasn’t true of all of the — the other half watched him with disgust. Some of them didn’t even try to hide it. 

He restrained his urge to turn to those assholes and hiss out a challenge, but only just barely, and only because a more worthy opponent appeared: Chief Inspector LaForet herself, leaning against the wall by the front door with her arms crossed. 

For her sake, he shoved away everything he had been thinking to manage a roguish grin. 

“Ah, Chief Inspector. I’m honored. Come to say bye to little old me?” he asked, taking a certain perverse pleasure at the way the woman’s upper lip curled upon hearing those words. He got the impression that she didn’t like him much. “Gonna miss me?” he added, straightening out to his full height — he was almost as tall as she was. He took heart from this. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Elric,” she snapped back. A curt nod to the officer behind Ed: although he didn’t turn to watch, he heard the man scamper off back into whatever hole he had come from.“I’m just here to make sure General _Mustang_ told you the terms of your release.” 

The blonde gave Roy a dirty look over his shoulder, to which the man responded with a delicate shrug, as if he had no idea whatsoever what the woman could mean. Ed snorted and turned back to face LaForet, his feet planted wide under his hips. 

“Tight-lipped bastard,” he muttered, just loud enough that Roy knew he was talking about him. Then, to the officer: “Naw, he never bothered. Fill me in quick, so I can get the fuck outta here.” 

The woman narrowed her eyes, but got up from her leaning position on the wall the wall to stand properly on her feet, folding her hands behind her back. 

“Here’s the deal: we let you go, for the moment at least. In return, you go outside and tell your little fan club” — she jerked a finger towards the front door and the crowd waiting beyond — “that the party’s over. Oh, and if you get into any more trouble between now and, say, the rest of your life, you’re going to be in for a world of hurt. Am I understood?” 

Edward blinked, a bit taken aback: those terms seemed astoundingly reasonable, perhaps even favorable to him. He wouldn’t have expected as much from her. Frankly, though, it probably wasn’t a good idea to question his good fortune. Instead, he snapped to a perfect — yet decidedly sarcastic — salute. 

“Yes sir, Officer,” he added, with all the vigor of a young cadet. “Perfectly understood. I look forward to our next meeting,” he added, and left her to try and puzzle out what he meant by that. He walked past her, to the door: he heard more footsteps behind him, then suddenly, there was a hand pressed to his lower back, a presence by his side, breath hot on his ear. 

“You know,” the general said, low and suggestive, “I think I get a bit jealous to hear you calling anyone else ‘sir.’” 

Edward nearly jumped out of his shoes in surprise, though the instinct turned to a full-body shiver as he realized what was actually happening. As soon as he did,, the hand was gone again, and Edward couldn’t decide if he missed its warmth or not. He knew that what the man said wasn’t really true: Roy didn’t have a jealous bone in his body — the two of them were very different in that regard, at least — but the way he had said it was so _possessive_ … It did something to Edward, something undeniable and immediate. 

“What the hell, old man,” Ed growled, because LaForet was not two feet away and everybody in the whole building was probably staring at them right then: he could feel their eyes on his back, burning. “Don’t do shit like that when we’re out in public. Everybody’s watching!” Roy gave a laugh at that, and stroked a strand of hair back behind Ed’s ear. 

“Let them,” the man murmured, and though Edward kept his eyes focused on the door in front of them, he could see the soft smile on his lover’s lips out of the corner of his eye. “Why should we care?” 

The comment was both touching and infuriating, in more or less equal measure. 

“Because _somebody’s_ job is at stake, idiot,” Edward hissed, trying to keep his voice as quiet as he could. Normally he didn’t bother worrying about being overheard, but today... “If you didn’t care so much about that shit, you can be damn sure I wouldn’t give a flying fuck, but you do, and so I do, and you don’t want this to show up in the papers tomorrow, right?” Surely, the man hadn’t forgotten about the sort of shit that had gotten them into such trouble in the first place. No — he was just so lost in the moment and so _stupid_ that things like that didn’t seem to matter. 

“Oh Edward,” Roy said, huffing a laugh. “I’m pleased and honored that you care so much about me, but rest assured, I’ve thought of that. I’m fairly certain that the damage has been done on that account.” He shrugged, and Edward allowed himself to tilt his face towards his lover as he listened — though just a bit. “What more could they possibly say about us?” Roy asked; his tone as he did so was surprisingly pleasant, not bitter at all. 

Edward considered this for a moment, then reluctantly, realized that ti was probably true. The press had already dug up every last secret he and Roy had to share: what more was there to be afraid of? 

“I guess you’re right,” Edward grumbled, when he couldn’t find any way to argue with the man. 

“I am,” Roy agreed, less insufferably smug than Ed had expected. “And actually, I think it might be good if people saw us together, the way we normally are. Well,” he amended, with a flash of a grin, “maybe not _exactly_ as we normally are. Maybe a little bit nicer.” Edward snorted. “You sowed the seeds, with your interview, and now people are interested in our relationship. They’re going to be watching, to see if what you said is true or not.” Ed tensed: this sounded like it was building up to something that he wasn’t going to like. “So, if you would allow me to do something as disgustingly sweet as perhaps put my arm around your waist as we walked out, I actually think that would be good press for us. I think that people would appreciate getting to see it.” 

The younger man groaned, and had no problem with showing on his face exactly how he felt about this. 

“You asshole, stop trying to justify trying to grope me in public. You haven’t got me fooled: I know you’re in this for your own selfish reasons,” Ed accused: Roy seemed to find this funny. A grin spread across his face, from ear to ear. 

“Can’t I have more than one reason for doing a thing?” Roy said, sounding utterly unhurt by the accusation. “I am correct, even if a bit selfishly motivated. But can you blame me?” he asked, his black eyes sparking. 

His chest kept to its steady rise and fall only with great effort: he did his best to keep everything under control, to keep the struggle off of his face so that Roy would never have to see it. 

“Ugh, you’re disgusting,” he said, rolling his eyes theatrically. “Do whatever you want,” he muttered, looking at the ground: Roy knew him well enough by this point to understand that those words meant something other than what it seemed. At least he hadn’t asked to hold fucking hands. Ed wasn’t sure he could handle that. 

“Thank you, Edward. I will,” he said, pleased as anything. He wrapped an arm around the younger man’s waist — remarkable, still, how they fit against each other so well — and, together, they stepped forward to open the doors. 

* 

“So, how does it feel to be out?” Roy asked, shutting the front door of the house behind them. Edward grabbed one hand in the other and stretched both hands way above his head, and let out a pleased yawn. Never bothering to take his boots off, he walked forward through the living room and took a deep breath: it smelled the same as ever, like cedarwood and leather. 

“Fucking amazing,” Edward said, and despite the faint trepidation that bothered him, that was true. Amazing, because he was sure that a person could literally die of boredom in one of those tiny cells. Nervous, because he hadn’t been _alone_ with Roy since… Well, since their conversation in his bedroom days ago, when the man had confronted him with the evidence of what had happened that Friday night. But he shouldn’t be worried, because all of his secrets were out, and it wasn’t going to be like that again. “I was so bored in there. They wouldn’t even let me have a goddamn notebook and a pencil. Afraid I was gonna go all psycho on them and bust out of the place.” 

Roy laughed at this. 

“A not entirely unfounded fear,” Roy said; Edward heard a rustling from behind him that meant he was taking off his jacket and hanging it on the rack, then taking off his shoes. “It wouldn’t be your first time breaking out of a jail cell.” 

“Well, yeah, but I’ve never been in jail for anything I actually _did_ before,” Ed replied, folding his hands behind his head and turning around to flash a grin at his lover. The look that Roy sent him in return made him shiver; the feeling lodged in his stomach, warm. His hands came down, and he shoved them in his pockets. 

“This is true,” Roy responded, and walked past Edward towards the doorway to the kitchen. “Well, good news: there’s no way you could possibly be bored anymore. So much has happened,” he said; a surge of sympathy hit Edward as he noted the twinge of exhaustion in his lover’s voice. “But we’ll fill you in on all of that later. I bet you’re hungry.” 

This caught Edward’s attention, drew it away from all those other distractions. His stomach growled, as if by hearing this it had been reminded of its pain. 

“ _Fuck_ yes,” Edward said, taking off at a trot and pushing past his lover into the kitchen. Stepping into the room confirmed what he had briefly thought, he _had_ smelled something unusual when he entered the house: he couldn’t tell exactly what, but he would make a strong bet that there was some garlic in it somewhere. “God, jail food somehow manages to be even worse than _train_ food. It’s unidentifiable slop.” 

Roy laughed, and followed the younger man in to the kitchen. 

“It’s not a hotel, Edward. What were you expecting? Five-star chefs catering to your every whim?” 

Edward blushed, as if he had been caught saying something stupid, even though he knew that Roy was twisting his words and he hadn’t actually said anything of the sort. 

“Bastard. Lay off,” he growled, stalking over to the table and slamming himself down backwards on the chair, folding his arms over the back and resting his chin on them. “Do I just stop getting sympathy thirty minutes after being let out? I had my hands cuffed together for _days,_ ” he whined, rocking his chair back to balance on two legs. 

“But teasing you is so much more fun than sympathy,” Roy replied, his eyes twinkling. “But of course I do feel for you, which is why I brought you dinner,” he said, then put an oven mitt on — even after all this time together, it was still kind of surreal in a painfully banal sort of way to see Roy Mustang with a goddamn _oven mitt_ — and swung the oven door open. He pulled out a tray bearing several large foil-covered bowls and placed it on the counter. He peeled the tinfoil off, loosing billows of steam into the air, and Edward’s stomach growled again as the smell of pasta and marinara sauce assaulted his nostrils. 

“It’s just takeout,” the general added, apologetically. “I didn’t really have time to make anything in between when I got the call and when I was supposed to go get you, so I just picked something up.” 

“Takeout’s great,” Edward said, letting the other man gather dishes and silverware, and watching with great anticipation as Roy began to pile pasta into each bowl. “Thanks. Food is exactly what I fuckin’ need right now.” 

No, it wasn’t; what he needed was… He didn’t even know. The feeling stirring within him he recognized as restlessness: he bounced his foot on the ground, scanning his surroundings, watching the way the general’s shirt crinkled as he bent to pick up the food, the way the fading daylight outside the window made everything look grey, and warm. He felt kind of like he was looking _for_ something — for reporters lurking in the bushes, ready to jump out, for signs of an impending attack, for a sniper in a distant window... 

Vigorously, he turned his attention back to his lover. God, he hadn’t been this paranoid in… actually, probably never. Was that normal? Or was it just another sign that he was totally fucked up? Well, whatever impenetrable weirdness was happening inside his brain, he knew that food certainly wouldn’t hurt the situation. 

A bowl in each hand, Roy swept across the kitchen and set one down at Ed’s place and his own; Ed swiveled in his chair, taking a deep breath to properly enjoy the aroma. 

“You are very welcome,” the general replied, favoring him with a warm smile. “It’s not much, but I suppose it’s enough.” 

Edward’s face heated up under the force of his lover’s fond expression: he turned his eyes down to his pasta and glared at it, as if that would make his embarrassment go away. He stabbed his fork into the spaghetti and began to twirl it, then shoved it into his mouth, not really caring that there were a number of strings still attached to his plate. Al would have said he was eating like a savage, but Al wasn’t here. With a quick, forceful look upwards, he fucking _dared_ Roy to say anything about it. Mildly annoyingly, the other man refused to take the bait. 

Wait, why was he baiting the other man at all? What the fuck was wrong with him? 

Maybe he needed to go for a run, that was it: he just hadn’t been as active as he would like to be. He had too much pent up energy, and it was leaving him antsy and irritable. A run, yes — but the cut between his legs twinged in silent reminder. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. He didn’t want to end up tearing the thing open again — he’d just have to go get it sewn up another time. 

Ignorant of the debate occurring in Ed’s mind, Roy sat in silence, beginning to twirl his own pasta onto his fork delicately. After the fourth bite shoved into his mouth, he realized that he should probably try to make some kind of conversation or something. 

“So what’s been going on while I’ve been all locked up?” he asked around his mouthful of food, then shoveled another one in. “It’s been, like, two, three days, right?” 

Even Edward’s special brand of people-stupidity couldn’t miss the way Roy tensed, then froze briefly upon hearing the question. It was gone again in a flash, but he knew he hadn’t imagined it. Had something else gone wrong while he had been away? 

“Well, quite a bit has happened, really,” the general said, putting his fork down and resting his chin on his folded hands. “I don’t believe I told you that this past weekend, I asked my mother for help in our investigations?” he said, the tone of it turning it to a question. 

Ed’s brow pulled down in confusion: he took another bite, though not as big as the last one, and shook his head. 

“Naw, you didn’t. What the hell does your mom have to do with any of this?” he asked: the only other time they had talked about Roy’s mother in the past had been when he briefly mentioned she was a brothel madame. 

“Well, I believe we have discussed her… profession,” the general replied, amused. “But that’s only half of what she does. She’s also an incredibly skilled intelligencer, as are the men and women who work under her. She can find out anything we need to know, with a little bit of time.” 

Part of Edward was almost kind of annoyed to be reminded just how little he knew about Mustang’s life, doubly irritated that he had been kept out of the loop for so long. Another part of him recognized that the General was a private person, and that this weekend hadn’t been the ideal time to tell Ed about anything. But that was the reasonable part of him, and reason had never had much say over Edward’s emotional life. 

“Oh,” he said, not knowing what else to say. 

“Your brother and I went to go see her today.” A bitter surge met the remark: so Alphonse was good enough to go meet Roy’s family, but Ed wasn’t? But that wasn’t fair. “We found out some crucial things, actually — one of which is that General Weimar, believe it or not, is probably actually gay himself.” 

The sudden inhalation that met this information made Edward choke on his pasta. He hacked a few coughs, pounding himself on the chest to try to get the stuff out of his lungs: once satisfied that he could breathe, he looked up at his lover with wide, startled eyes. 

“He’s _what?_ ” Edward said, unable to say anything more intelligent or relevant than that. “But… he’s…” 

“A complete bastard, yes, I know,” Roy said with a laugh: for some reason, this response stemmed the tide of Edward’s burgeoning rage. 

“I was gonna say ‘a bigoted, homophobic motherfucker,’ but that works too,” Edward said. After a moment of silent thought, he spoke again. “I don’t get it. If he’s, y’know, _gay_ , then why all the…” He waved his hand around awkwardly, trying to express through gesture the clusterfuck that had been the past several weeks. “Bullshit?” he finally finished, having found no more appropriate words. 

Roy’s smile held a twinge of bitterness. 

“Unfortunately, liking men does not automatically make one not an asshole,” he said, which made Ed laugh, to his surprise. “He clearly has some serious issues that he needs to work out, but instead of actually working them out, he’s taking out his frustrations on us. And of course, I’m certain that politics plays more than just a marginal role.” 

Edward frowned, thinking, his meal forgotten in front of him. He really didn’t understand: getting people was not, and had never been, his strong suit. They made all kinds of stupid decisions that didn’t make any sense to him, their motives often impenetrable and utterly confusing. An urge to lash out in pure frustration bit through him, but he reined it in, because he knew that it wasn’t Roy he was angry with. 

He fidgeted in his seat, hunching his shoulders up. 

“Fuck,” he growled, for lack of anything else to say. “He don’t got the right.” 

“No, of course not,” Roy replied, in his most pacifying voice. The man watched Ed carefully, appraising, perhaps a bit worried. “But this doesn’t really change anything. We’re still going to take the same approach that we have been — well, with one important modification,” he said, and although Edward was mildly curious, he didn’t ask. “We’re still going to take Weimar down. Fundamentally, our task is still the same. This is just an interesting development.” He paused, still eying his lover. Eventually, when no more words passed between them, he asked, “Edward, are you alright?” 

The question caught Edward by surprise: normally, people didn’t ask him that unless something really bad had just happened. Why wouldn’t he be alright? He was out of jail, free to do whatever he wanted, and they had one more lead against Weimar. Everything was going the way he wanted it to. Actually, life was pretty fucking great at the moment — so why did he feel like a wound trap? He was tense and dangerous, ready to spring at the least offense, and he knew it. 

“I’m fine,” he said, knowing he was lying even as he did. He just didn’t know what the real answer was. They sat in silence together for a moment, before Ed blurted out, “Why didn’t you tell me about your mom?” _Why don’t you tell me anything?_ Was that what was bothering him — knowing just how many secrets his lover kept from him? No — that didn’t feel right. 

If Roy was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. 

“I don’t know,” the general murmured, and took another bite of his pasta. “I didn’t really have a reason. I suppose I didn’t think it was relevant, before all of this happened. We’re both quite private people, you know.” That was true, but Roy still knew everything about Edward, whereas Ed… “It’s just not the sort of thing that I think to mention. I told you when it became important, though.” A pause: he fixed a pointed gaze on his lover. “You never gave me a proper answer to my question, however. Are you alright?” 

Goddammit, he had noticed. Of course he had. He noticed _everything._

__

“I told you, I’m fine. Everything’s great. I dunno why you’re asking.” He stabbed his pasta with his fork and shoveled some into his mouth, only bothering to chew it once before swallowing it in a hard lump down his throat. 

Roy folded his hands in front of him on the table. 

“I am asking because you are behaving in a way that is worrying me,” the man said, and Ed knew it was serious, because he only talked all formal like that when he was angry or annoyed or worried or other bad things. “You’re acting irritable, for no particular reason. And not just since I told you about Weimar — ever since I picked you up from jail,” he said, before Edward could think to use the revelation as an excuse for his mood. “You’ve snapped at me repeatedly, for doing nothing in particular. You don’t usually do that — not unless you’re uncomfortable, for some reason, or otherwise unhappy.” Roy took a deep breath, and fixed an incisive look on his lover. “Is my presence making you uncomfortable?” 

“What? No!” he shot back, automatically: he _wasn’t_ uncomfortable, or at any rate not with Roy. Was he? He paused, thought; he twirled his pasta around his plate and found, to his annoyance, that he wasn’t hungry anymore. “No,” he repeated, once he had gone through his options. “I’m super happy to see you.” 

The general made a noncommittal noise. 

“Are you? You’re not acting like you are,” he said, and thank god there was no accusation in that voice. 

“Sorry,” Ed mumbled. “I am, I swear.” 

Roy nodded slowly, as if accepting that answer for the moment. 

“I see. So if it’s not me that’s making you uncomfortable, then what’s wrong?” 

Ed shifted in his seat. Roy was right, and it wasn’t really fair to him to inflict this mood on him without even telling him why. He owed it to the man to at least try to figure it out. He took a deep breath through his nose, a cold column of air hitting his lungs. Maybe he could try talking it out, for once in his fucking life — at least so Roy would stop looking at him like that. 

“Fuck. I don’t —” He hunched further in his seat. “I’m not sure.” Another pause. He thought. “I’m just… really frustrated.” 

“I see,” said Roy, in that careful tone that meant that he was waiting for Edward to continue. In a burst of irritation, Edward’s mouth opened and words that he had never planned or expected came out. 

“I’ve been cooped up for so long, with nothing to do. I guess I’m just feeling the effects,” he said, with a short, insincere laugh. “And even when I am out of jail, it’s like I can’t really help. Anything I do just makes the whole situation worse.” 

A restless sort of energy suffused every muscle: he wanted to _do_ something. He wanted to get into a fight, to come to blows and feel the hot pound of victory through his veins. He wanted to be in danger, to be aware of everything around him in the way that only adrenaline could make him, to be balanced on the precipice of destruction. 

A realization hit him then, a blinding flash. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time — not since he and Roy had begun their relationship, all of those months ago, when every night had found him running himself ragged, hunting the streets at night in search of danger, of thugs to fight. The days had found him letting himself go hungry, provoking the people he loved into hurting him. He had promised he wouldn’t do stupid shit like that anymore, but he found himself wanting to go out there again, to the streets, to feel the thrill of violence and victory. 

He knew what was wrong, now: it wasn’t just that he was frustrated and cooped up, although that was part of it. It was that he was desperate for that rush of adrenaline, that feeling of calm surrender only the General could spark in him. That was what he wanted — the rough slide of spark-gloves across his skin, ropes digging into hiss flesh, the velvet richness of the general’s orders in Ed’s ear. Yes: he wanted Roy’s touch, wanted the man to tie him up, to hit him — wanted to be praised for it, to feel like he was doing something right, like he wasn’t such a fucking failure all the time. 

Even then, in the crest of an epiphany, the voices never left him. 

_(hurt you, just the way you like it)_

__

_No — fucking — shut UP, you are not going to DO this to me._ He was stronger than that. They couldn’t rule him. 

He was going to fucking do something about this: and he thought he knew exactly what that was. 

__

“General,” he said, his voice hoarse and cracking from the effort necessitated by the single word. On the edges of his vision, he saw the man straighten up, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. The title, from Ed’s lips, affected Mustang more than the older man liked to admit. “I think… I know what’s wrong, and how to fix it.” 

Silence from the general’s side of the table — silence, except for the heavy rise and fall of his breaths. 

“I want you to tie me up, and hit me. Please, sir,” he said, the last words barely more than a whisper. 

“Edward,” Mustang said, on a long exhale. Edward risked a look up from the table to find that his words had stoked a fire in his lover’s eyes, a familiar hunger. He shivered. “I must admit, I am surprised to hear you say that. I was not prepared.” 

“Yeah, well…” He drifted off, not knowing what to say after. “Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I only just now realized what was up. Is it a problem?” he asked, trying to make the words aggressive, threatening, but failing. 

The general’s eyes tightened. He was thinking of some good reason not to, Ed could see it in his face. 

“Edward, I don’t think —” And there it was. 

“I want you,” Edward broke in, before the other man could finish his sentence. His heart was a throbbing knot in his throat, blood thundering in his ears, but it was true _._ In a flash, he sprung to his feet and was standing by Mustang’s side, so close they could touch, if he wanted. A deep breath: he felt the beginnings of that haze, his blissful state of submission, come over him, and he responded by sliding a leg over the general’s lap, settling himself there. 

_(faggot)_

__

He had gotten better at ignoring the voices, by now. It was about damn time. 

__

The general stiffened, and Ed recognized the way the other man’s pulse sped up in the hollow of his throat, the way his chest rose and fell heavily, visibly. 

“You want me too,” Edward continued; he pressed their bodies together, right at the crux, and was rewarded by a heated groan from his lover’s lips, soft and involuntary, and the slow, gradual response from the man’s growing sex. “Don’t deny it. You’d like nothing more than to chain me to your wall and get out your whip, to hear me scream as you cover me in red marks.” He rolled his hips again, and there was no denying it: Roy was hard below him, and his short nails dug into Edward’s back. The sheer giddy thrill of the seduction overtook him enough that he didn’t care how pink his cheeks were, how sick his stomach, how the fear built up in him, below everything. Fear was such a small thing, so easily overwritten. “You wanna watch me come in your hand,” Edward purred, and finally — _finally_ — closed the distance between them, pressed their lips together, sealed their reunion with the heat of a kiss. 

And such heat it was: with a groan, the General abandoned his impassive facade, rocking his hips up to meet the answering hardness between Edward’s legs. Need shot through him, immediate and primal, and he gave a soft whine as Roy did it again, then opened his mouth to lick at the seam of Edward’s lips: they parted to let him in, tongues sweeping across each other as lips moved, as hands stroked sides — 

— as the cut between Edward’s legs twinged. 

He stiffened, his mouth going still for just an instant as a memory of the fear that had overtaken him that night blossomed through him — 

but he could do this. He could. He would. He _had_ to, or he was gonna go fucking crazy. 

Roy pulled away, concern in his eyes. His red-bitten lips hung parted, glistening, and his breath came hard in his chest. Ed moved in again, to continue their kiss, but a steady hand kept him where he was. 

“Edward,” the man said, his voice rough and full of want. “Believe me when I say that it kills me to say so, but I don’t think we should do this. I’m not sure you’re ready.” 

The corded muscle of Edward’s neck tightened, as did his jaw. The refusal annoyed him: did this shit invalidate his ability to choose for himself? He didn’t fucking think so. No body could “do what’s best” for him but _him,_ goddammit, and he wished everybody else in his life could get it through their fucking heads. 

“Asshole,” Ed snapped back, rubbing the tent in the front of his pants against the hard ridges of Roy’s stomach. “Let me fucking tell you what I’m ready for and what I’m not. You don’t get to decide that shit,” he said, moving a hand down to close possessive fingers around the general’s obvious erection. 

Mustang managed a breathless laugh as Edward squeezed through the thick cloth of his pants to what lay beneath; the laugh turned into a hissed breath as Ed dragged the nail of his thumb up the length of it, stopping to rub faint circles around the tip. 

“Edward,” he repeated, the word now sounding distressingly like a plea. “I can’t. Not right now, alright?” Edward froze: other possibilities arose in his mind. Did Roy not want him anymore? Was he disgusted by Edward’s wanton display? The younger man frowned, staring at the defined lines of the general’s neck. He berated himself, silently: of course that wasn’t what was up. He was a fucking idiot, and should stop jumping to conclusions before he got himself in trouble. “Maybe you _are_ ready, but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with doing something like that to you just yet.” 

“Liar,” Ed spat, although he did not move, paralyzed by the possibility that _he doesn’t want you anymore,_ because his emotions didn’t give a shit what his reason said. “Obviously you’re just being an overprotective dickwad — what, did I suddenly lose the ability to think for myself in the past five days? You’ve always taken me at my word that I’m okay to do this shit before. What makes this time different?” 

Although he would never have admitted it aloud, the man wasn’t wrong. Maybe he was a touch more nervous than usual, less certain of himself. Maybe it was just that unwelcome thoughts kept swirling through his head, bursting through the dam of his restraint to churn, relentless, just below the surface of his conscious thought. He knew that he was moving fast — not two days ago, he had struggled with even the notion of anyone touching him. And now here he was, rubbing himself in Roy’s lap in desperation. What the hell was wrong with him? 

Still, he wanted this, _needed_ it to feel like himself again, so he didn’t retract his question. 

Roy answered first with a long sigh, closing his eyes to let his head hang forward to press gently to Edward’s collarbone. When Ed breathed, the fine black hairs tracing the general’s forehead fluttered against his pale skin. 

“I’m not trying to invalidate your decisions, Edward. I respect that you feel you are ready, and I’ll keep that in mind. But, at this point, if we played, I would worry constantly that I was about to actually hurt you. Perhaps physically — you are still injured, remember —” Edward hadn’t forgotten “— or perhaps mentally. And if I said or did something that hurt you that way, I would worry that you wouldn’t tell me, paradoxically to _keep_ me from worrying. So I would never know if you did.” 

The convoluted tangle of logic made Edward want to laugh, but he didn’t. Would he tell the general if something went wrong? Well, he didn’t have the greatest track record so far… Probably not. It just wasn’t in his nature. 

“So, you see,” the general continued, lifting up his head to meet Ed’s eyes, “as much as I have missed your body, and I have — _god,_ I would love to make you scream until you’re hoarse —” his voice went low and rumbling, and the next breath Edward took was shuddered “— to fuck you with my fingers until you came over and over again —” that tone of voice was going to _wreck_ him “— I would not be comfortable enough doing so right now that I could actually enjoy it.” His tone returned to normal then, and Ed wasn’t sure if he was grateful or disappointed. “Worrying that I have hurt you is deeply unpleasant, and I have spent enough time in the past several days doing exactly that,” he added, with a self-deprecating laugh. “So I hope you will forgive me if I don’t want to today.” 

Edward’s stomach flipped, and it could have been nervousness, could have been irritation, arousal, gratitude. He sat there, absurdly, like a ventriloquist’s doll on backwards, in Roy Mustang’s lap, and stared at the man. A moment passed, then two, then ten; and abruptly, he barked a laugh, half out of amusement and half deep frustration. 

“Bastard,” he said, fondly, grumpily, letting his forearms rest on his lover’s shoulders even as he pulled the rest of his body away. “Makin this’ about me trying to push _you_ into something. You could talk circles around the fuckin’ devil, couldn’t you?” 

“If anyone can,” the other man said with a smile, letting a hand come up to stroke the faint curve of Edward’s waist. The general’s thumb traced under his shirt, and Ed shivered, dug his fingernails into his palm to combat the intensity of the sensation. “It’s a useful skill.” 

“Whatever,” Edward said, with a shake of his head. The rapid beat of his heart had begun to slow, like it had recognized the end to the danger — but still, beneath the surface, his need lay, untouched. 

“God, this is gonna fuckin _kill_ me,” he groaned, eyes falling shut. “You asshole. You know how horny I’m gonna be?” 

Roy gave him a lopsided smile as his hand continued its teasing path. 

“I think I have some idea,” he noted, dryly. It was hard to tell with his eyes as black as they were, but Ed thought the other man’s pupils might have been blown out with desire, swallowing his whole iris. It was a comforting thought, and he held onto it. 

“Or maybe that’s all part of your master plan,” he said, unable to resist another small circle of his hips above Roy’s own as he said it. “To get me all worked up so that by the time you’re ready to tie me up and fuck me, I’m horny as hell and begging for it.” 

“Mm,” agreed Roy, and although his eyes were sliding shut at the pleasure of the sensation, a smile grew on his lips. “I will neither confirm nor deny your accusations.” 

Edward tried to ignore the sensation of the rough pad of that thumb on his skin, the way the general’s half-hard cock pressed up against his own, because he was already going to be irritable this evening from sheer unmet need — no need to make it worse. 

“Of course you won’t,” Edward said. There was a slight, seeking motion from the man under him, a short hiss; Ed took this as his cue to get off, pull away from the other man. He couldn’t erase the dim rush of frustration in him, the longing, the raging erection _,_ but at least he could rest satisfied, knowing that Roy was in the same boat. He grinned at Roy’s look of bereavement, then rounded the corner of the kitchen table and sat down in his own chair. He picked up his fork, twirled his pasta around it for a moment, then released the strands and did the same thing again. 

Slowly, Roy’s eyes came open again, and he readjusted his sitting position to more comfortably accommodate the boner he was most assuredly sporting below those uniform pants. There was a moment of quiet as Edward mulled over everything that had just happened, and Roy seemed, for once, lost for words. 

“You know, it’s really weird: you’re the only person who can talk about worrying about me like it’s your fault, not mine,” he finally said, staring into the tangle of noodles that was the remainder of his meal. This seemed to strike Roy from his silence. 

“Well, in many ways, it _is_ my fault,” Roy replied, lacing his fingers together on top of the table. “You told me that you were fine, and yet I couldn’t simply take you at your word. That has much more to do with me than it does with you.” 

Edward stared at his lover for a moment. 

“You’re a really weird person, d’you know that?” he finally said, half accusing and half-admiring. 

Roy laughed, and propped his cheek up on his fist and elbow. 

“And thank god for that. If I were any less strange, I don’t imagine that you would have stuck around for so long,” he replied, a fond look in his dark eyes. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Edward said with a snort; he stabbed his fork into his food hard enough that it the resulting noise echoed through the whole room, then shoveled a cartful of pasta into his mouth. He chewed once and swallowed, then spoke again. “You know I’m just here for your dick. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with you.” 

A smile spread out across Roy’s face. 

“I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment,” the man said, his meal utterly forgotten in front of him. 

“You do whatever the fuck you want,” Edward replied, agreeably, and took another bite. 

****

****

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that was worth the wait!
> 
> If you liked it, I would love if you would let me know! Your kind words make my day every time.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if I, by chance, have not yet responded to your comment on the last chapter, I want you to know it's not because I didn't get it or love it -- it's because I'm a terrible person and have been awful at responding! However, I'm gonna get caught up now that this chapter is out, because I do love you guys and want you to talk to me.
> 
> Anyway, I decided that doing a Relevant Summary of Past Chapters might be a good idea, because it's been a long-ass time since most of you guys have read the stuff in the earlier chapters, so you might do well with a reminder. 
> 
> So, here goes:
> 
> Weimar is a creepy pervert, with a collection of creepy perverted photographs in his armoire, including a set he had taken of Roy and Ed. He’s also an enormous bigot, and falsified police records to show that crime rates had been increasing since Ishballan refugees had begun to flood into the city. This led to the Fuhrer approving a series of raids on homes housing Ishballans, which killed about eight people and arrested a hundred more. The prisoners have since disappeared; nobody knows exactly where they are.
> 
> Meredith, Weimar's wife, is terribly unhappy with her husband for his part in the whole Mustang scandal, although she doesn’t know about the photographs or about the raids. They haven’t spoken since she hit him several chapters ago.
> 
> Rebecca Daniels (the radio interviewer) and Havoc used to date, before Havoc was a dumb shit too many times and she broke up with him. They stayed friends, though, because he wasn’t an _unforgivably_ dumb shit, and he has been slowly working on wooing her back (although this has all happened off-screen).
> 
> Ed got out of jail and tried to get into Mustang’s pants. He failed, and neither of them is too happy about this.
> 
> And that, ladies and gentlefolk, is where our story begins.
> 
> \--

**Chapter 14**

*

Edward lay awake in his bed that night for much longer than he had hoped, victim to his insistent urges to get _up,_ to get out of this tiny-ass room with its wooden floors and its painfully normal four-poster bed, with his desk, piled high with papers on which he couldn’t properly concentrate. The walls closed in on him and it was too small, he needed to get _out,_ needed an escape — 

_That bastard_ , he thought, groaning and flipping onto his side. _He should never have turned me down. What kind of fuckin right does he have to ignore what I say I want and just decide what’s best for me? No right at all, that’s what._

Ed _did_ want it, this thing he was asking for. To tell the truth, there was something kind of frightening about how fiercely he wanted it, to have all of the troubles of the world lifted off of his shoulders, to feel like a thing both valued and valuable — the amount that he depended on Roy Mustang for that alone scared him more than he cared to admit.

If something happened and this whole thing didn’t work out between them… if Roy got put in jail forever… What would Ed do? Go without? Get increasingly self-destructive until he found something — anything — that would satisfy his urges, no matter how stupid? Find someone else?

He snorted at the thought. _Not fucking likely._ He couldn’t imagine that there was anybody else in the world who could put up with all of his bullshit.

 _Can’t even go five days without having somebody tell you what to do,_ a voice inside him said. _You’ll just end up rubbing yourself on somebody’s boot before the week is out, if he keeps saying no. What the fuck is wrong with you?_

_(you wanted it, whore)_

He hissed out hot air, baring his teeth against the dark. Nothing was fucking wrong with him, goddammit.

Violently, he shot up in his bed, scrubbing a hand across his face in sheer frustration. He took a deep breath to replace the one he had lost, then let his eyes drift to the window, focused with a strange longing on the street beyond.

A thought occurred to him, accompanied by guilt at the thinking of it. He could always do what he had done before Roy had been there to take care of his problems: he could go out and look for a fight. There was _always_ a fight brewing somewhere in this goddamn city, some crime-in-progress that he could thwart, some criminals he could punch. Punching people always made him feel better, he knew. It had been so long since he had felt the sweet strain of muscle, the satisfaction of fist on flesh, the rush of adrenaline when the enemy came at him and every ounce of him was really _present_ , attuned to the faint rustles of the slightest motion.

 _You sure that’s a good idea?_ another voice added, with a sick glee. _You remember what happened the last time you were out by yourself in an alley at night._

A rage like illness — he didn’t know if it was at himself or at everything else — burst through him: he threw off his blanket in a fit of fury, and slammed himself to his feet. This would be different. He had been drunk that time, and off his guard — but no shit like that was ever going to happen again. He could fucking handle himself, goddammit, and he was going to prove it.

 _(Whenever you get urges like this, you just call me.)_ He remembered Roy saying that, once upon a time: and he _wanted_ to call the man, he _did_. Their brief contact only hours past, after dinner, had been _thrilling,_ wonderful (that acrid taste in his mouth was not fear; no, nothing like it), and all he could think about sometimes was how it would feel to be tied up under the general’s hands, to be beaten as coarse rope dug into his skin, to please and be pleased in return.

 _I’d fucking love to, but you said no. Any other brilliant suggestions?_ Even in his thoughts, he snarled at himself, angry at the decisions he was making, angry at the ones he wasn’t making. If he were _normal,_ if he were _sane,_ he could just wait for Mustang to be ready — or better yet, he wouldn’t feel the need to do something so fucked up at all. If he weren’t so batshit fucking crazy, he could be like Alphonse, able to give and accept gentleness with ease — but he wasn’t like his little brother, in so many ways. He just fucking wasn’t. Al was a better person than him, in every goddamn way.

He dressed quickly, silently, pulling his spare boots out from under his bed and shoving his feet into them. Nobody had any right to judge him for this.

For a moment, he considered just going downstairs to the front door and leaving that way, but he knew from long experience that Alphonse had amazing hearing, magically attuned to the sound of a key in a latch — he appeared in a puff of purple smoke whenever the front door was unlocked at night, and he was never pleased about it. 

So, not the door: he turned to the window again. In the stillness of the night beyond, the wind held its breath in anticipation above roofs and branches painted in silver light.

Another second, and he had crossed the floor, the wooden frame shoved up to leave the window open, just far enough to admit a small body.

 _Mustang’ll be mad,_ Edward thought, one leg hanging over the windowsill.

 _If he ever finds out_ , another voice whispered. Edward bared his teeth in a humorless grin.

_Who the fuck are you kidding? He always finds out._

This was Edward’s last thought before he launched himself out of his window. He readied his body before landing, loosened his muscles in preparation for sudden contact with the ground — but he was not at all prepared for the surge of pain that hit him as he crashed like a stone into the soft earth of the garden..

 _Shit, what the fuck was that?_ He tried to stand, mind reeling in a mixture of dizziness and confusion. He struggled to regain his balance, but never did, instead toppling over onto his side when his leg gave out underneath him.

Lying there, stunned, his brain made all the necessary connections.

 _Should have landed harder on your other leg, dumbfuck. Did you forget about the little cut that fucker gave you, right where it counts?_ Yes, he had forgotten, or perhaps ignored — “repressed” might even be a better word. He hadn’t wanted to think about it. Now, the juncture of his thigh hurt like fire, only it wasn’t a _clean_ hurt, it was a _dirty_ one, soiled by terrible thoughts and memories and associations. He groaned, as quietly as he could manage: he had probably already woken Alphonse with the clatter of his fall, but he didn’t want to more certainly draw his brother’s attention or wrath by making a loud noise of pain.

Shuddering, he flattened a hand out against the dirt and struggled to his feet again. It shouldn’t hurt this badly — the slash hadn’t been _that_ big, only about four, five inches long, and not that deep, all things considered. But _damn,_ knowing didn’t make the pain go away; it pulsed through him, all he could feel or taste for those few moments. It had to be a mental thing, he knew, because worse injuries hadn’t bothered him so much. But that was so fucking stupid. There was no reason for him to be so upset about it. On the list of the worst things that had ever happened in his life, this didn’t even breach the top five. He had handled way worse than this before, why was it so difficult now?

 _Maybe, you’re just getting weaker._ The thought, unpleasant, insidious, haunted him. Had all this time away from the front lines really just made him even more pathetic?

Despite the silent, tortured dialogue, he couldn’t help but notice that his heart had begun to beat faster; the spike of adrenaline that followed the shock of pain was a cool relief to his nerves. 

_Shit_ , he was fucked up in the head. He couldn’t believe he _liked_ this, this seeping _gash_ they had given him as punishment — 

_(you wanted it, whore)_

“Goddammit,” he hissed aloud, eyes flickering in the direction of Mustang’s house. It wasn’t _that_ late. Maybe eleven. Roy might even still be awake. He could go to the man’s house, ask for what he wanted again. He could probably be really persuasive, if given the chance.

But the man had already refused Ed once that day. Was he going to debase himself further by begging? 

_You would if he told you to. You’d even like it._

He snorted a laugh, a bitter tang. Was this what the great Fullmetal Alchemist had been reduced to? He turned his gaze back down the long street, to where it disappeared into the night. The pain between his legs, finally little more than a dull throb, only made the excitement more tangible.

_He won’t like it if I go out there. I guess I never promised not to, exactly, but still…_

_Maybe he’ll punish me when he finds out._

This was enough to make up his mind. He turned in the opposite direction,towards the dangerous places, the dark alleys and the criminal elements that both repelled and attracted him. It had been too long since those fuckers had felt the wrath of the Fullmetal Alchemist.

He grinned, summoning up his determination by force, and took off at a run; the wind rushed past his face, and the ache between his legs throbbed desperately, beautifully, adrenaline cutting through his veins until he forgot his time in his cell, forgot his room and his bed and his longing, forgot his need, forgot everything except his own body, pulsing with energy, with hot blood and a million emotions, and yes, he was _alive._

*

The descent into madness was often a slow thing, subtle, nearly invisible to all that did not know its signs, and love could blind you to many evils. Meredith had never thought of herself as the kind of woman to be blinded by love, and yet life, as it often did, was proving her wrong.

Night brought her dreams, memories and half-memories; patchworks of reality with fears and hopes and intentions. These things may never have occurred — or if they did, not like _this_ — but that did not make them any less fundamentally true.

_She stood before a man, so unlike her husband — thinner, for one, a smile wide on his face, though his leg had already been lost — but wearing his face; a soft gown of gold dreamsilk rustled around her. His right hand clasped hers up at the level of their eyes as they spun about together; his left never ventured below the dip of her waist. Clumsy, unpracticed steps opposed her elegance, but she smiled to see him moving at all; automail may perhaps be less graceful than flesh, but he was no less beautiful for it. More than two years ago, he had lost his leg to creeping infection, and dancing was a difficult skill to master even with two flesh legs._

_Yes, the infection had been terrible, or so she had heard — but she knew also that his heart had succumbed to the rot before his leg had. Sometimes, without judgment, she wondered if he had done it on purpose — but she never asked. She wouldn’t blame anyone for a thing they tried to do to get themselves out of that hell._

_But that was years ago, and today, he smiled at her, and she smiled at him, full of pride; a kaleidoscope of dresses and faces spinning around them, in perfect time, and though the couple wrapped in each other’s gazes may not have been as perfect or whole as the fairy-tale couples floating around them, but they needed nothing more than themselves._

_His eyes never ventured down from hers, and when she spoke, he listened, and for these things and more she loved him; an unsteady rhythm of footsteps over floor, and they may have danced on the bodies of the damned but this was a celebration of their victory — two years to the day since the last desert city burned to the ground. What else could they have danced on?_

_Breathless from laughter, they twirled together —_ yes, he had been funny, hadn’t he? _— she frowned —_ what a strange thought to have _— but pushed it away again into a smile because she was happy, yes, she was happy — her brother had left and gone to the war and never come back, but in his stead had come this man, leaning, broken, on a crutch and clasping a medal with her brother’s name on it in his hand with hot tears swelling at the corners of his eyes. With his pain he had absolved hers, saved her by giving her someone to save, and she shuddered to think who she might be without him._

_And then, without transition, she stood at a table, pouring a drink — red-thick, symbolic and appropriate. She spared a glance back at him — shy, awkward, he stood in the cloud of dancers, awaiting her return. She had been born to this world, but it was no more her world than it was his, and that kinship kept her sturdy._

_Her cup, silver-clear and full of blood, in hand, she turned to leave — and then **he** was there, and he was smiling sickly-sweet, the foam of his rabid thoughts collecting in strings on his teeth._

_“Hello, darling,” he said, in a voice that might not have been human at all — slurred and incomplete, broken and unfocused — “I see you’ve taken a liking to broken toys. How cute.”_

_She stiffened, her pulse beating in her throat, but turned to him and smiled._

_“Hello, Mr. Harris,” she said, clenching her glass in her hand so hard she feared it might break._

_“Come now, don’t be so formal with me.” His dark eyes pierced into hers. “We know each other too well for that.” The suggestive tone behind his words was clear. “I’ve missed you, you know,” he said, and then suddenly she wasn’t where she had been — heavy hands pushed her back into a corner, foreign tongue and the tastes of stale cigarettes invading her mouth. Her stomach roiled as he pawed at her breast, and there was no space between them — she was trapped, choking, drowning in his mouth, and her hands came up to his chest as if to push him away but stayed there, because she didn’t know how to take that decisive step._

_But his other hand slid down her waist, the path of her stomach, towards the crux of her, and she couldn’t stand there in passive shock anymore — she summoned up all of her strength and shoved him away. He took two staggered steps back, and stood there, swaying, his eyes wide._

_“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, almost as surprised by her actions as he was. He looked hurt, wounded, and she felt guilty_ , _god, **guilty** for pushing him away. _

_But still, she didn’t want that — not with him, not ever again._

_“Just a bit of fun,” she heard, but the voice was empty, distant, an echo. “You just look so lovely.”_

_Heart pounding, she spun away from his cold, dead eyes, back towards the room full of dancers. She didn’t even have to look at them to know that what she most feared was true, that a hundred couples watched her, judged her for her indiscretions. Eyes swept from the dip of her bodice to the tight clutch of her corset, then to the bare skin of her arms, her neck —_

_She knew what they thought; dressed like **that,** she should have expected it. Must have wanted it, if she had decided to dress that way in the first place. If she told them she hadn’t she didn’t, they would have called her liar; she knew because she had heard it before, over and over. Clutching her arms around herself, steadying, stabilizing, she couldn’t wait anymore, couldn’t even stand and prepare herself for the gauntlet run because she heard his footsteps coming up behind her._

_Flight, then, and escape — she wove her way through the crowd, darting, panting. Then, her destination — Mikhael, standing and staring off into the distance. Once he saw her he turned to her and gave her a huge smile — enormous, delighted._

_“Welcome back,” he said, oblivious, and she smiled back at him: his gaze never strayed from her face, never pooled on the swell of her chest or hips, and as he moved to take up their dancing position again, his hand never slid down lower than was appropriate._

_She loved him for it, for all of it. She could stay with him forever; she knew this. She clasped his hand in hers again, and opened her mouth to speak —_

And then, she awoke in a moon-drenched room, her hair clinging to the sweat on her neck and the urge to cry pricking at the back of her throat.

She turned to her side, hiding her face in her pillow, and she waited for sleep to claim her again, and hoped that, this time, it would take her gently.

*

Although Alphonse was not there when Edward returned to the house that evening, he knew that probably didn’t mean that the younger man didn’t _know._ With all the noise he had made leaving, and the way Al was attuned to the sound of the unlocking front door — he had to go through the front door to come back if he didn’t want to _really_ make a scene: he had never been as good at getting back in through windows as he was at leaving through them.

Probably, all his absence meant was that Al was waiting for some other opportune moment to confront Ed about his behavior. Or maybe he was waiting to see if it would happen again.

Probably, it wouldn’t. As good as it had been to feel the crunch of bones under his knuckles, to feel the wind in his face, to escape danger by a hair’s breadth, to come home with new bruises but think, _yeah, and you should see the other guy —_ now he just felt empty — tired, alone.

And still fucking horny.

He clomped up the stairs and fell, face-first, onto his bed with a _whump_ and a loud squeak of mattress springs, and groaned into the padded cloth.

_Godfuckingdammit._

_What the hell else am I supposed to do?_

He considered masturbating, but at — he shifted just enough that he could see the clock on his far table — three thirty in the morning, it really just seemed like too much effort for what he was going to get out of it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t _ready;_ of course not. He was just fucking _tired._

 _One more day,_ he thought, scowling into the mattress. _Just make it one more day before you start rubbing yourself on his boot. That’s all I fucking want from you._

He was going to make the bastard cave, goddammit. That, or he would die fucking trying.

He rolled over onto his back, kicked his shoes off, and hoped to god that he could get to sleep sometime before tomorrow.

*

The echo of the slamming door that indicated her husband’s departure signaled to Meredith that she was safe. IN the quiet that followed, she rose from her bed, pulled a soft cardigan from her drawer and over her shoulders, then padded on still-bare feet downstairs.

A strange sense of loss pervaded her as she passed through the halls, took to the stairs, as all of the gilt and artifice of her home, the empty trappings of this life passed by. Once, there had been hope, here. She had imagined the sound of her children’s laughter here, imagined cooking for a family — large, boisterous, happy. She had wanted so many things — and was that, perhaps, her sin? Avarice, or something like it, desire for all that was good in this world; and now, desire for all that was lost to her.

A bitter mouthful, that thought. She had given her life to him, and he had given her in return — what? A lonely existence, forever feathering her nest in preparation for a future that would never arrive.

An intrusive thought: did she even want it to come, anymore? Did she want to share that life with this man — with who he had become?

She stood, near-paralyzed, in the kitchen, her left hand out on the grey-speckled granite countertop for support, the rush of her thoughts leaving her unbalanced and confused.  
  


Who _had_ he become? She didn’t even know.

Perhaps she wasn’t being fair to him. She had never given him a chance to explain himself after their fight in the garden several nights past, never demanded to know what he was doing and why. Could she then blame him for not telling her?

A flush of anger burned her; it didn’t _matter_ what he said he was doing. He would avoid telling her, give her half-truths and outright lies and altogether refuse to take responsibility for this, as he had for everything else. He had always been able to placate her, to insist that someone else was in the wrong, not him — _never_ him. And she had always listened, calmly, smiled and agreed and stroked his hair because she had believed him, every time. 

_Not this time,_ she thought, fiercely. She wouldn’t be taken in again. This time she would see with her own eyes, and make her own judgments.

And just like that, the tremor of her nerves froze to determination. She turned on her heel, her nightgown swishing around her ankles, and paced across the room, into the entry hall, coming to a stop in front of his office.

One way or another, she would have answers. Whatever it meant for their relationship, for her, for her _life,_ she couldn’t ignore this; couldn’t go on living as if nothing were wrong, as if she was living a model life when all this torment lived just out of sight.

She caught her breath, heavy in her chest. If, in her search, she found nothing, perhaps she would allow her suspicion to be allayed. She would make dinner for him tonight, apologize for her absence, try to re-connect… But if she _did_ find something, anything, confirming her worst suspicions… A flutter of nervousness reawakened in her at the thought. What would she do? Surely, she couldn’t just _leave,_ after everything she had done for him…

 _If you do find the proof you’re looking for, then hasn’t the life you’ve been living been a lie all along?_ The thought caught in a lump of emotion in her throat, choking her — if released would it well up into tears? She didn’t know, didn’t want to find out. And that feeling _hurt,_ wounded her deeply, so she summoned up all her determination and righteous anger once more to fling the office doors open, and enter.

And there it was, its very familiarity strange in this new light; the great wooden filing cabinet behind his heavy desk, the thickly stuffed chair between the two, the portraits of long-dead relatives or Fuhrers on the walls were the same as ever: it was only how she saw them that had changed. She stood there and stared, for a moment, collecting herself. She did not know what she expected to find, so she didn’t know exactly where to look — but she was a practical woman, and so she began in the most logical place: the cabinet.

 _Technically, this might be considered a crime against the state,_ she thought as she sat down in her husband’s office chair and turned it to face the cabinet. She couldn’t help but smile at this: it was so utterly absurd, the idea that _she_ could be a traitor, after everything she had seen and done and suffered in its name over the years.

Delicate fingers flew through folder after folder, pulling papers out just long enough to allow her to skim their contents, then replace them. Before she knew it, an hour had passed, and nothing untoward had crossed her path. The desk received the same treatment, but she had no more luck there.

As her conscious mind reviewed mind-numbing military document after document, other, more subtle, parts of her mind worked, and this spare corner of her thoughts said:

_What about the armoire?_

The import of that thought didn’t strike her at first: she continued to file away another document, making sure it was exactly how she had found it. Then, she froze, eyes going wide as they stared sightlessly into the drawer.

 _Oh,_ she thought, realization and a fluttering sort of anticipation dawning on her. _The armoire._

For years, she had known that her husband had been keeping some sort of secret there; more than once over the many years of their marriage, she had passed by the door to their bedroom and glanced through the crack, only to see her husband kneeling in front of it, a book or some collection of papers and oddities on his lap. She was not so unobservant as her husband evidently thought. 

The first time she had seen it, she had almost entered the room out of sheer curiosity. Before she had, though, she caught a glimpse of a thing that stopped her in her tracks, her hand on the doorknob. She had examined the objects in his lap for a moment, two — then her eyes had widened in realization, as those strange objects became unrelentingly familiar, gold and shining and full of pain.

She remembered well the way her stomach had flipped as she had realized what they were: her brother’s medals, awarded for continuing to fight while injured, for bravery in the line of duty. The sight of them always made her heart twist, pride mixing with threatening tears, because maybe if Jacob hadn’t continued to fight even after being injured, if he had gone straight to the hospital, the wound wouldn’t have festered as it did, maybe he wouldn’t have died — 

And maybe, she never would received Mikhael’s letter, never met her future husband at the train station, the stump of his missing leg wrapped in bloody bandages, as he rustled around in his bag to keep from looking her in the eye, pulled out the medals, and offered them to her, clenched in his fist.

 _He was — my comrade,_ he had said, his voice tight with emotion. _Jacob — he was — the best of us._ A hot tear had streamed down his face, catching her by surprise: in the narrow confines of the world in which she had been raised, men didn’t cry — or at least, not where others could see them. The sight of this grown soldier moved to tears had startled her out of her own. She had gone to his side right away, on instinct, and wrapped an arm around him, and he had slumped onto her as if he needed nothing more than her support. She led him to a nearby bench, helped him to sit, and took the place next to him herself.

There, they had held each other — he clung to her as if desperate, and she to him, a hurricane of emotions raging underher calm exterior. He had spoken to her, his voice harsh and shaky, and neither acknowledged his tears but she would always remember them, and the words that had accompanied them. 

_Your brother’s sacrifice — I’ll make sure it wasn’t in vain. I swear, as God is my witness, I will make this country so strong that no-one else will ever challenge us, that no one else will ever die as he did._

It might have been in that moment that she first loved him.

All of this had come back to her in a flood as she had seen him there, in front of the armoire, with those medals. She knew he had kept them: she had returned them to him, after all. But what had hit her like a bullet to the heart was the expression she saw on his face when she glanced up, through the crack of the door. He looked _wrecked,_ face curved and twisted into a map of his despair. As quietly as she had come, she left — this was not the place for her, and she had no right to intrude on such a moment. 

Even as they had said their wedding vows, she had known that Mikhael had loved her brother more than he ever would her. She had known this, and accepted it gracefully; but they had never spoken about it, despite her efforts. She wished he hadn’t felt like he needed to keep it a secret, but hadn’t pressed the matter, knowing how much it hurt. Now, she wondered, if perhaps she should have — 

If she was searching for her husband’s secrets, she knew with a sudden, deep clarity, that was where she would find them. 

She had known where to find them for many years, if she had cared to, but she had never felt the need to see them. Not, at least, until today

She left his office as she found it, shut the doors, made her way upstairs to her bedroom in a daze; then, she knelt before the deep mahogany of the armoire as if in supplication — appropriate. This was, after all, an exorcism of sorts.

The doors swept open: the false bottom of the armoire came out more easily than she expected. She held the panel in surprise for a long moment, her breath coming faster through parted lips. But a deep curiosity of the kind she hadn’t known in years had overcome her, and she could do nothing but give in to it. She placed the wood gently on the floor next to her, then turned back to face everything she had refused to see for so many years.

A pile of letters, stacked untidily, took up one corner; the opposite, a thick tome, bound in heavy leather; to the front, photographs, and a small display box, containing two medals. She glanced at the photographs — saw her brother with his arm thrown over Mikhael’s shoulder, a grin on his face, and her heart twisted.

Maybe she shouldn’t be prying, maybe all she would find out that day was just how deeply her brother’s death had affected her husband, had hurt him in ways that would never heal, how she had never even come close to being as important… 

She did not look through the photographs; perhaps she would have the strength to do so in a moment, but not yet. Still, her hand hovered above them for a moment in masochistic fascination. In moments she moved on from there, then paused with a finger pressed to the spine of the book. Her moment of trepidation now over, she closed her fingers around the breadth of the tome and lifted it, steeling herself.

And then, there it lay, in her lap: the barest movement of her finger peeled the cover away from the first page. It creaked as it opened, as old things do, and then the leather lay flat against her thigh. On the first page: nothing. Blank. Her dread only grew as she brought her fingers to the edge again, but she was better than her fears.

Then, she turned that page; horror hit her like a bullet as she recognized what she saw.

It was a photograph, but so different from the one she had seen only moments ago, with two friends, or perhaps lovers, touching, smiling. This one had a strange young man in it — a young man with long black hair, a smile on his face, and no clothing. A flush rose to her cheeks as she stared at it in shock: he was very obviously enjoying himself, his hand down between his legs, and — 

She flipped the page as quickly as she could, to preserve what was left of the young man’s — and her own — dignity. Her heart pounded. Her husband had never even _acknowledged_ his interests, in fact vehemently _denied_ them: to think that in secret, he would keep a photograph like _this…_

But it wasn’t just a single photograph, she realized: the next page boasted another young man splaying himself out across the next page, the next page, and the next — different men, but all salacious, all looking at the camera as if to invite the viewer.

Again, trembling fingers turned the page, the nausea growing in her, the pity, the despair. He had hidden so much from her: tormented by urges he couldn’t understand or control, he kept them locked up in this wooden prison, never letting them out to see the light of day. The amount of cognitive dissonance it would take to keep her husband from being torn in half by the pull of these conflicting lives… Somehow she had thought that… well, that perhaps he had his desires under control, that his love for her would be enough. But it wasn’t, she knew now, and it never would be.

Ten more pages, twenty, thirty — a horror akin to sick fascination kept her going. Then, she turned a page, only to be met by something entirely different. She froze on this one as she had on the first, her lips parted for a gasp as her heart began once again to race.

This — this was a photograph of General Mustang and the Fullmetal Alchemist, the younger astride his lover’s lap, arms wrapped around his neck. So like the ones that had been printed in the papers — and yet, it was not one of them. A different one, unpublished. Her gaze slid to the next photograph; it was similar enough, also taken without their consent or knowledge, a violation of a very private moment.

The pity she had felt only moments before turned cold, heavy, in her chest. He _had_ ordered this, made it happen, told someone in no uncertain terms to take and publish these photographs. He was behind _all_ of it. And he had kept — god _,_ he had _kept_ them, for his own personal pleasure. The thought made her head reel, dizziness overtaking her. 

_How could he do this? How could he — and think it was alright, think it was justified, think it was anything other than **utterly appalling…**_

****

A choked sob from her own mouth startled her, brought her back to the present moment, firmly trapped within her body and her life. The tightness in her throat hurt when she swallowed, a deep knot of pain and rage and loss — she didn’t know anything anymore, alone in a strange house, living with a strange man, and the person she had buried under years of lies and dreams and carefully fulfilled expectations was screaming to be let out, crying — 

_I’m going to be alone forever now_ , she thought, and her resolve cracked into another sob, and then she pressed her hands to her face, as if hoping to stem the flood of tears. _I’m going to be alone, because I can’t stay here anymore._

She crumpled forward, her breaths staggering along as she tried to control herself, to _get_ control of herself again — she had always been so good at that, except now — now — 

Her life was broken, an echo and a memory, and it had been for longer than she wanted to admit. With one hand, she managed to shut the book again, and she clutched it to her chest, dark stains running down her cheeks.

But her tears came to an end eventually, as all things do: wiping the trails of wetness from her cheeks, she got to her feet, the book still in her arms. In a daze, somehow both more herself than she had been in years and also beyond herself, she found herself changing into proper clothes: a dress, blue, with a light tan jacket. Then, she headed to the storage closet down the hall, took out her suitcase; in seconds it was open on her bed. Her husband’s book was the first thing she placed inside, a proper coat the second, and despite the state of her emotions, she began to fill the space neatly, each piece perfectly aligned with the others, and she took comfort in the familiar rhythm.. Her jewelry box; she took that. Then, to the bed: she pulled back the cover, back the sheets, and stuck forefinger and thumb into a tiny hole in the mattress, pulling out a whorl of bills. These, she placed into her purse, and went to the bathroom to wash off the last remnants of her tears. A trace of eyeliner, a dab of concealer, and the problem was erased, as if it had never been.

The other preparations were easy enough to make: her sketchbook she rescued from the sitting room, and everything else she returned to its proper place, as if she had never been there.

Thus pulled together, she came to stand at the threshold of her home, a single wooden door between her and the rest of the world. Taking a deep breath, she picked her suitcase up with her left hand, pulled open the door with the other, and with only a moment of hesitation, stepped out into the sunlight.

*

Roy received a call at seven-thirty the next morning, hunched over his coffee at his kitchen table, wishing to god that early could be _later_. He gave the kitchen wall a bleary glare as the ring of the telephone cut through it from the other side: the last thing he wanted to do was have to talk to anybody at this hour, after his fitful night’s half-sleep, but given the state of everything he probably couldn’t afford to miss this call. So, in a force of will, he pushed himself up from the table, his warm mug clutched to his chest. Even dragging his feet reluctantly, it was only a few steps until he had rounded the corner into the living room. He came to a stop at the side-table where he picked up the telephone receiver, which thankfully muted that horrible jangling noise.

“Hello, Mustang here,” he said, and though he tried to sound professional and curt, his voice was still gravelly and heavy with the weight of the sleep he hadn’t gotten enough of.

“General.” Alphonse’s voice. He groaned internally: this couldn’t be anything good. Al never called him just to talk about the weather. “Good morning,” the younger added, more cheerily than he had said the first word.

“Alphonse. Can I help you with something, so very” — he took a deep breath — “ _very_ early in the morning?”

The younger man laughed at that, light and melodic.

“Not a morning person, General?”

“Depends entirely on how much coffee I have had,” the man returned, swiping sleepy dust out of the corner of his eyes with the tip of his thumb. “And this morning, the answer is ‘not nearly enough.’ But what can I do for you?”

Alphonse made a noise of thought or acknowledgment, Roy wasn’t sure which, but it didn’t matter much because in moments he was speaking again.

“I just wanted to let you know that Edward disappeared from the house for a number of hours last night.” This caught Roy off-guard: he swore his heart stopped beating for a moment. “It seems likely that he went off looking for trouble again, getting into fights and causing all kinds of damage. You know, like he used to.”

 _Edward…_ His heart clenched, unfamiliar. Was this about what had happened between them the night before? Or rather, about what _hadn’t_ happened? Of course it was: it had to be. Since his retirement from the military, the younger man had only ever deliberately put himself in danger to distract himself from his _other_ needs, a kind of stopgap measure so he didn’t have to ask for Roy to dominate him, to hurt him, to help him.

Except this time, it was different: the blonde _had_ asked, and the general had refused. Did that make it his fault if Edward got hurt again, doing those sorts of crazy things? He pinched the bridge of his nose, then bowed his head and covered his eyes with a hand. He shouldn’t worry, he knew. Edward could still take care of himself, even with everything. It was just…

The very last thing Roy wanted was for Ed to get hurt again. There had been so much pain in his young life, and he deserved to live the rest of his days in peace and happiness. Not that there was any chance that that would happen, of course — _not with you for a lover_ , he thought, then pushed the twinge of guilt away — but if there was anything he could do to make Edward’s life better, he would. So had he made the wrong choice?

“You don’t seem as worried as I would have thought,” Roy said, or maybe he was just worrying too much? After all, Stupidly Risky Things came part and parcel with Edward Elric, and there really wasn’t any way to avoid that.

“Mm,” came Al’s response. “Well… Let’s just say that I’m not worried because I have faith that you can take care of the problem. You did last time, after all.”

He had helped with Edward’s problems, yes, with his hands and teeth and rope, and it had possibly been the best thing he had ever done — not that it had a lot of competition in that category. And he would love to do the same, now, truly. A certain part of his anatomy twitched, making its interest quite clear.

“I’m flattered that you have such faith in me, but I’m not so certain it will be as easy as you make it sound. The situation is…” A breath. “Different, this time.”

“Is it?” Al asked, brightly, innocently. “Interesting to hear you say that. It seems to me like it’s really quite similar.”

Roy sighed. He needed time to think about this.

“Thank you, Alphonse,” he said, rubbing his temples with thumb and forefinger. “I appreciate your help.” A pause. “I will… see what I can do,” he finally said, the most delicate and honest response he could give.

“That’s all I’m asking,” the young man responded. A thoughtful break. “And… I just wanted to say, in case I haven’t… thank you, for everything you’ve done for him.”

“No need to thank me,” Roy replied, guilt and want and apprehension all fighting for his attention. “Really. No need at all.”

*

Roy had only just begun to awaken properly by the time he arrived at Central Headquarters, cheek propped up against the arm he rested on the window ledge of the car. His thoughts still ran to Edward, to their conversation the night before — had he done the right thing? Was the younger man alright? Invasive thoughts of the younger man straddling his lap, how he had ground his ass into Roy’s crotch and kissed him with such fire, had kept him up that night — he hadn’t wanted to say no, had wanted to die him up and fuck him ‘till his knees buckled, but he hadn’t, because he was too much of a fucking _gentleman._

 _It was for Ed’s own good_ , he reminded himself, mostly sincerely, although a faint doubt hung with him. Edward had regressed, had gone back to old ways, and it might be his fault, but the world would not stop to let him deal with Edward’s problems. No indeed; he had to deal with the whole world, on top of his ornery, broken lover.

He was exhausted. He needed a break — a good, long one, where he didn’t have to talk to a single politician or reporter, where all he had to do was fuck Edward senseless and read as many books full of absurd ghost stories as his mind could tolerate. 

As the driver began to pull up to the front gate, Roy saw something that made him sit up in surprise.

Hordes of protesters crowded the pavement in front of the colossal structure that was Central Headquarters, stood protesters; and not the same ones who had stood in solidarity with Edward Elric, he noted. These men and women held signs on wooden stakes, covered in brightly painted mottos that ran from _Our Lord is judging you_ to _Our Lord is judging this country_ to _Repent;_ one, Roy’s personal favorite thus far, was simply an enormous print of the photograph of him and Edward on the couch in his house that night, Edward bent over his lap, face pulled tight in ecstasy as Roy spanked his bare ass, though that part was of course blurred. The caption below it, in red letters, read: _Would you trust this man to run Amestris?_

He was not nearly awake enough to deal with this. As a matter of strict fact, he might _never_ be awake enough to deal with this.

He gestured to the driver to take him around to the back entrance, which the man did without a word, though Roy could see curious eyes focused on him in the rear-view mirror. He ignored the silent examination, glaring at the sea of protesters in front of him until they slid out of sight behind stone walls.

It didn’t make any sense: what had happened, that so many people were suddenly reacting to their story with such vehemence? There had been outrage before, certainly, but it was the kind of outrage that stayed safely at home, shared between people who could cluck and shake their heads in righteous disapproval or disbelief as they read the newspaper above their breakfasts. That kind of silent holier-than-thou judgment annoyed him enough, but this was an entirely different order of magnitude…

His personal irritation at this development, however, lay somewhat buried under a sense of deep disbelief: was this _really_ those people cared enough about to come protest? The Ishballan people were massacred in their homes, then forced into hiding in the sewers of Central City to starve, and Amestrians were disappearing without a trace for the simple crime of allowing refugees some human dignity, and what these people got up in arms about was two men having entirely consensual sex?

It was more fucked up than he knew how to deal with.

Sometimes, he was tempted to just give up on all of this, go to Xing, and leave the Amestrian people to stew in their bigotry and hatred. But even in those moments of doubt and despair, he would remember what would undoubtedly happen to the remnants of the Ishballan people if he left, what the country would be come without his guidance; and so, he stayed, no matter what it cost him.

The back entrance to headquarters was thankfully free from the madness that surrounded the front, and Roy stepped out of the vehicle with a word of thanks and a tip to his driver for his patience, and his silence. He always made it a point to tip well, even in situations where it absolutely was not necessary — this driver was from the military motor pool, after all, and so Roy was actually his superior officer — but he had found that a little bit of extra courtesy could go a long way. The man thanked him, surprise written on his face, but certainly did not turn down the bill; he tucked it into his breast pocket, then was off again, presumably deciding that he needed to leave before Roy had the chance to change his mind.

Simply seeing the pleased expression on the other man’s face lifted Roy’s mood enough that he felt prepared to face the rest of his day, and he turned on his heel to sweep up the worn marble steps to his office.

He should see Edward tonight. They should go out to dinner together, have an evening together without discussing politics or current events or anything of that nature, to just _talk,_ to enjoy each other’s company; yes, that would be good for them, he thought. Out in public, the two of them could talk without fear of delving into topics that neither of them were ready for. Yes, that would be good: and he could assess Edward’s mental state, as well, could attempt to discern through the subtleties of speech or voice just how Edward was actually coping, just what his sudden return to his old self-destructive urges meant _._

His thoughts continued along on this path until he reached his office; without pausing to think, he opened the door, only to be torn from his imagination by the unusual sight in front of him. His subordinates, or most of them, stood or sat in a small crowd around a newcomer — after a few moments, he recognized Rebecca Daniels, though with her hair unfixed and her makeup faint, as if she had forgotten to wash it off the night before and hadn’t put any more on, she bore faint resemblance to the perfectly put-together woman he had met on previous occasions.

The woman stood there, surrounded by concerned faces, hands clenched at her sides and her eyes locked with Hawkeye’s. As Roy took a few steps closer, the detail in the scene grew, and the sight of tears welling at the corners of her eyes took him aback. No-one seemed to have noticed him yet; on her other side, he noted that she was holding a seated Havoc’s hand in hers, squeezing it until their flesh was white and bloodless.

“I just can’t believe it. How could something like this happen?” she said, and Breda, slightly behind her, shook his head in disappointment or disbelief. No one answered her question; he didn’t suppose they were meant to, but still, the moment was tense. Roy took this opportunity to break the awkward silence.

“Well, everyone here is unusually somber today, aren’t they?” he asked, with a forced cheerfulness. Everyone turned to look at him, somehow surprised by his appearance. “What, was I not supposed to show up today?” he asked, with a little laugh. “You all look so surprised to see me. But this _is_ my office, you know. You should probably plan on me being here every so often.”

Nobody responded to his comment with a laugh or a teasing comment, which said something about the emotional temperature of the room.

“General, sir,” Hawkeye said, with a quick salute. “There’s been an unexpected change in the situation.”

Ah. He had been afraid of that. He didn’t let the sudden sweep of exhaustion back through him show on his face, though: he kept his affect pleasant and unaffected.

“Has there been?” he asked, crossing the room. As he did, Havoc stood and put an arm around Rebecca’s waist, absently, as if he didn’t even realized what he was doing. Roy couldn’t be quite sure whether the gesture was meant to comfort her or if it was a subconscious attempt to warn Roy Mustang, Thief of Hearts, to back the hell off of his soon-to-be girlfriend. He almost laughed to see it, and probably would have if the mood hadn’t been so dark. He couldn’t strictly blame Havoc for being worried, but he needn’t have been, at this point. Everyone now knew that Roy Mustang was a taken man, and Edward would not take kindly to philandering.

“Those fucking _monsters_ who are after you came after us, too,” Daniels said, a choked rage in her voice. Havoc gave her a brief look of surprise, but did not comment — since he had by all appearances heard her story before, Roy guessed that he had never heard her curse. “My radio station has been shut down, pending investigation of _‘gross tax evasion’_ and embezzlement _._ It’s all a lie, a _terrible_ lie —” she said, going on from there, but Roy did not hear the next words because his mind was stuck back on _shut down_ , on the fact that someone had taken their only media ally out of the game, quickly and quietly, and that she, too, had been punished for her kindness.

 _No, don’t think like that,_ he reprimanded himself, standing straighter _. They’re not out of the game yet._

“What happened, exactly?” he asked when she was done, his affect gone from cheerful and friendly to strong, reasoned authority in an instant. Breda let out an audible sigh of relief upon hearing this, and Havoc and Fuery, too, seemed relieved. But he couldn’t take this moment to appreciate it, the way his mien of power could put his men at their ease, to pride himself on the way they trusted him. Still, seeing their unconditional faith in him reinforced his sense of calm purpose.

“Tax inspectors came in to the station yesterday, saying they were there for a surprise audit. Naturally, we of course let them in, thinking that it was just normal procedure. But when we led them upstairs to the safe, our normal binder full of our revenue and such seemed to have been joined by something — another, smaller binder below, containing duplicates of all of the tax forms we sent in to the government. And when they began to look through our own personal records, we started to realize that many crucial numbers had been changed — or at least, they must have been, because they weren’t matching up with the tax forms, and I know we did it right. It ended up looking like the company was regularly skimming money off of revenue and giving it to top employees and never recording it so we didn’t have to pay taxes on it, which is _absolute nonsense,_ but they believed it and now the company that I’ve worked my whole _life_ to get going is in trouble, and —” She didn't seem to know what to say from there, her rage turning to hot tears in her eyes. Havoc pulled her head to his chest, hugging her, and she did the same in return, closing her eyes and letting herself lean on him.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmured, petting her hair. “It’s gonna be fine. We’ll sort it out. It’s not over yet,” he said; she choked out a laugh, and opened her eyes again, straightening up just enough that she could look at him.

“I know it’s not over, idiot,” she said, wiping the back of her hand forcefully across her eyes, as if embarrassed by her sudden display of emotion. “You think I’m just gonna lie there and let them take this from me? Of _course_ not. Radio is my life,” she said, with a set to her jaw and posture that told everyone that if she was going to go down, she was going to go down fighting. Havoc seemed stupefied by this sudden intensity, staring with his lips slightly open as if he would really like nothing more in that moment than to kiss her.

Before the blonde man could go and do something that would make this whole thing entirely awkward for everyone, Roy cleared his throat pointedly, which apparently was enough to remind the two of everyone else’s presence. They fairly sprung apart from each other’s embrace, Rebecca crossing her arms and Havoc shoving his hands in his pockets, as if to disown their own actions. Roy gave Havoc a slight smirk and an arched eyebrow, which the taller man met with a faint blush — but the general turned serious and professional again upon turning back to Ms. Daniels. Those two could perform their courting dance after all of this was done.

“I take it that it was an exceptionally good forgery, for the inspectors to have bought it so easily,” he said, running through possibilities in his mind. _Unless the inspectors were paid off_ , he thought, grimly — that would be inconvenient, in some ways, but in others, a bad forgery would be easier to deal with than a good one, if they could get honest inspectors to look over it. He needed to get all of the details before making any decisions. “And you think this was done in direct response to our radio interviews?”

Ms. Daniels shook her head, hands clasped around her elbows as she pulled her arms in tighter.

“I couldn’t say for sure,” she replied, thinking about it. “But the timing seems too convenient for it to be anything else. As for the quality of the forgery — yes, it was perfect, at least as far as I could see. All of our books are typed up on a typewriter out-of-house quarterly, but whoever did the forgery exactly mimicked the shape and style of the letters. It looked like it was printed, as professionally as you like. Someone somehow got rid of or covered up the old text, then either found out what kind of typewriter we use and retyped it, or they can copy by hand like you wouldn’t believe.”

Roy made a thoughtful noise. Were the numbers transmuted into a different configuration? It seemed likely. Even such a transmutation, however, would leave telltale marks, although the size and amount of the marks were defined by the speed of the transmutation and the amount of practice the alchemist had with that particular transmutation. Or maybe, more traditional forgery techniques had been used… The only way to find out would be to examine them. He should call Alphonse — _no, Edward,_ he thought. _I can’t even help — everything I do just makes it worse;_ those words echoed in his memory, made him hurt. Maybe, if Roy could show the younger man that he was useful, that he was wanted, then he wouldn’t feel the need to do all of the stupid and dangerous things he had been doing.

Besides, Edward was a genius. Roy would bet a lot of money that his lover would see something in the situation that no-one else had. Besides, if it had been transmuted, then no one would be able to tell faster than Ed.

“I see,” Roy finally replied, coming to the end of his train of thought. “Well, Ms. Daniels, I am truly sorry if this happened as a result of your association with us, and we will do everything we can to make it right.”

“Thanks,” she said, standing up straighter, her proud and collected air once again returning to her after the indignity of her emotions. “We’ll be doing everything we can, too. You might not have a lot of friends in the media, but _we_ do — competitors or not, we’re still invited to each other’s weddings at the end of the day. So I’ll get them on the story, make sure there isn’t a soul in Amestris who doesn’t know about the dirty business that’s been going on by tomorrow morning,” she said, with the first hint of a smile she had displayed all day.

Roy nodded. Having her attacking the problem from a different angle would certainly be helpful.

“Best of luck,” Roy said, then turned to walk towards his office — but before he made it more than a step, he remembered something, and turned back to the group. “Oh, by the way, do any of you have any idea just what the hell is happening with the madness at the front gate?” He had almost forgotten about it in the face of the distress he had intruded upon. “The protesters and all of that.”

Roy’s team looked confused, except for Hawkeye, whose expression of neutral observation remained unchanged; maybe they had all arrived earlier than the protesters, or by a different way, or something. In any case, no one seemed to have seen them, and he would have felt a little bit crazy if Rebecca hadn’t spoken up.

“Oh, those guys,” she said, and Roy found himself once again grateful that they had approached this woman. “I was going to talk about it on the show tonight — but I guess that’s off the table for now, huh? Don’t worry, though, it’s not a huge deal,” she said, in response to the apparently worried twitch of Roy’s face. “It’s just some crazy preacher-man and his followers. He’s become pretty popular recently, rekindling an old fertility cult — and I do mean _cult.”_ Ah, good: more cults. _Perhaps I’ll have to let Edward loose on them._ The thought gave him an unexpected amount of pleasure. _“_ To this guy, any sexual liaisons that aren’t meant to or can’t end in pregnancy are taboo and a violation of the divine plan. People who have sex with others of the same gender — or straight people who have sex recreationally — are rejecting their creative essence, which makes you an apostate from God’s intended religion and therefore evil. Or something,” she added with a shrug and a bit of an awkward laugh. Ah, yes: Edward would have a good time with this one. The woman continued. “Anyway, he had a big sermon last night on the radio, where he basically denounced you and your assbanditry —” Roy gave a startled laugh to hear it, though the slight smile with which she said that indicated that it probably wasn’t _specifically_ the word the preacher had used “— and called on all of his followers to come out and show what side they stood on this morning. They’re a pretty small group right now, only a hundred and fifty or so people, but it’s got some pretty devoted members, and they’re growing. I’d say they’re pretty much harmless for the moment, but they could be a pain in the ass.”

They could be, indeed. Roy had never been overly fond of the religious type, and he wasn’t alone: although he heard things were different in other countries, there had been no commonly practiced religion in Amestris for probably a thousand years. Groups popped up, and then disappeared again, only to be supplanted by another. The idea of an all-powerful, all-loving god had never found much in the way of fertile ground among the people of his country. When such groups did appear, though, they had a habit of causing trouble.

But he was honestly still a bit stuck on something she had said earlier.

“Assbanditry?” he asked, still perhaps more than a little shocked to hear this from someone who had always been so polite around him. Well, he supposed that everyone dealt with stress in different ways — and if she made inappropriate jokes, who was he to judge? Havoc didn’t seem to mind too much — he was staring at her again, like a lovesick puppy dog. “Charming,” Roy appended, deeply amused. She shrugged, still smiling, as if to say that, yes, _she_ thought it was. “Thank you for the information, though,” he added, moving on from there. “That’s very helpful. It would be nice if we could get rid of them, somehow — without infringing on their right to protest,” he added to placate Hawkeye, who had thrown him a silent, dirty look. 

It would be so much easier to deal with all of this if he could just stoop to the level of his enemies. There was no official “right” to protest, under Amestrian law — technically, it would be quite legal for him to have the military police chase every last protester back to their church, or even arrest them. He would never do that, though, because he had principles, and he wouldn’t abandon them, no matter how much he wanted to.

“I don’t think they should be our focus,” Hawkeye said, breaking her silence for the first time in minutes. “I think that dealing with the forgery is much more important.” Roy, however reluctantly, had to agree. The protesters were perhaps more personally distressing, but she was still right.

“Of course, Major,” he said, all business once again. He turned back to the rest of them. “As for all of you, continue on the tasks that have been assigned to you. I’ll have Edward deal with the matter of the forgery.” A few scattered nods; Roy arched an eyebrow, and gave them all a hard stare. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get to work,” he commanded, before turning on his heel. There was a frantic patter of feet as they scattered in fear of him. 

“Oh, and Havoc,” he added over his shoulder as he walked away. “I would appreciate it if you and Ms. Daniels would wait at least until you leave the building to have frantic, desperate sex.” There was a panicked squeak: he couldn’t tell which of them it came from, and he turned to face forward again before they could see the smile on his face. Hawkeye rolled her eyes as she fell into step beside him, although the slight quirk of her lips betrayed her amusement. He shared a look with her, his eyes sparkling. As soon as they stepped out of the room, he turned again and said: “Beside, those supply closets aren’t as comfortable as you might think,” he added, and had just enough time to see the looks of eternal mortification on their faces before Hawkeye swung the door shut behind him.

“I bet it’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours,” Roy told her, smugly, as soon as the door clicked closed.

Hawkeye turned to him, expression absolutely immobile.

“Surely you’re joking,” she deadpanned, arms clasped around the folder in front of her. Roy arched an eyebrow in silent question. “By the end of the afternoon, at the very latest,” she said, allowing herself a brief look of soft amusement. Roy laughed, deep and delighted, and gave her a fond slap on the shoulder, which she endured admirably. 

“You’re on, Major,” he said, smile spread wide across his face, happy for them despite all the bad that had happened. “You’re on.”

*

It took Roy at least an hour and two cups of coffee to get settled down into his work properly after the morning’s excitement. And yet, as the hours passed, acute boredom crept up on him: unavoidable, he suspected, considering the nature of the work he was doing. He felt like a glorified secretary: over the track of the past several hours, he had signed requisition forms, dealt with a request to lessen power usage in Central Headquarters, approved non-essential personnel transfers, dealt with non-military government correspondence… After going through bids presented by various construction companies on the recently-announced refurbishment of the East Wing of headquarters, he felt pretty done with everything work-related. 

_Construction bids used to be so much simpler,_ he thought, letting himself sigh and lean back into the cushion of his chair. During the Elric brothers’ brief period as a military contractor before he had begun to work in the lab, Roy had left most such projects to them — after all, no-one could construct anything as quickly or cheaply as Ed. The general smiled to remember his response to Ed’s first above-ground project; well, suffice to say that it had reminded him that Ed’s taste level, although personally charming, left something to be desired on an institutional level, and so he had left all further renovations to Alphonse. The younger brother was only too happy to take the flame patterns off of the walls of Roy’s office and turn the enormous, overdramatic horse statue — complete with the _largest_ set of balls the general had ever seen in stone — that had stood proudly outside the front door to Roy’s building back into whatever Ed had made it from.

And he hadn’t even gotten properly reprimanded for it. Mustang had called the younger man into his office to do just that, but Edward had grinned, and asked, _What, don’t you like it?_ in this terribly casual, horribly seductive voice, and the general had ended up fucking him over his desk, moans muffled only by Roy’s fingers in his mouth.

He had drooled all over Roy’s paperwork, and hadn’t been a bit apologetic about it afterward, though to be fair Roy couldn’t claim to have been too upset, either.

A long sigh escaped him as he tried to bring his mind to other things. Thoughts of Edward still distracted him, despite his best efforts to the contrary. If he needed to, he knew that he could go much longer without hearing the other man scream or sigh in pain or pleasure, but he didn’t _want_ to have to. His younger lover’s impatience must have been rubbing off on him, he thought with amusement; the thought reminded him that he ad actually intended to call Edward earlier that morning, but hadn’t, out of respect for his sleep schedule. A glance up at the clock told him that it was nearly eleven. Chances were high that Edward was awake now — or at least, awake enough to be going on with.

Picking up the phone on his desk, he slid his finger into the divot of the rotary phone and twisted the dial until he had picked out the Elrics’ now-familiar telephone number. A ring — two — five, and then a muffled voice on the other end.

“H’llo?” came Edward’s voice, rough and scratchy with extra sleep. Roy smiled to hear it; that tone was familiar to him, from many a wonderful, lazy morning in bed; he had heard that quality of Edward’s voice turn to whimpers and then moans of pleasure as Roy had fucked him slow, or fingered him until he came right there under the covers. Some mornings, looking at the golden miracle he had coaxed into his arms, all he wanted to do was to touch Edward until he broke apart, maybe kiss him as he went over the edge… Often, mornings were too slow and quiet for him to want to actually have sex, but he was never too sleep-struck to bring his lover to a wonderful orgasm.

Goddammit, he had to stop thinking about this. He was getting as bad as Edward.

“Hello, Edward,” Roy said, hoping no hint of his train of thought remained in his voice. “I see that despite my best calculations, I’ve managed to call you before you have properly awoken.” Then again, he shouldn’t have been surprised: the younger man _had_ been out all night, after all, and probably had gotten quite a bit of exercise.

“Fuck off,” Ed groaned, and Roy heard what sounded like the younger man flopping dramatically onto his back. “I haven’t been sleeping too well, past coupla days. Prison mattresses are total shit. You blame me for tryin’ to make up for it?”

Roy chuckled.

“Of course not, I wasn’t criticizing, I was simply observing.” He didn’t doubt that Edward was telling the truth, to some degree — he was just leaving out important details.

“Yeah, right,” Edward groused. “You’re always fuckin’ criticizing.” A change of topic, without segue. “So what the hell’re you callin’ for, so early in the morning?” Roy could see the younger man in his mind’s eye; one arm thrown across his eyes to block out the light, his hair spread out and messy on his pillow.

“I actually have something I’d like you to do for me.” A silence met that comment; that probably meant it was alright to get down to business. “You see, the radio station that played our interview has been accused of tax evasion and has been shut down until the investigation is done.” Edward sucked in a sharp breath on the other end, but Roy continued on before Ed could say anything. “A number of documents were forged or modified in order to make this happen. I would like it very much if you could come up to headquarters, figure out where the forged documents are being held, and give them a look yourself. What we need is proof of some kind that they’ve been modified from their original forms, whether by transmutation or more traditional methods. I thought that might be a job you were suited to.”

There was a silence; all of a sudden, the sound of the small clock hand became almost overwhelming. Five. Six. Seven ticks. Then, Edward spoke again.

“Wait, are you asking me for _help?_ ” he asked, all sleepiness gone from his voice and replaced by a genuine surprise.

Roy blinked, furrowed his eyebrows, leaned back in his chair.

“Um… yes?” Roy replied, baffled by his lover’s immediate response. 

“You’re actually asking me for help. Like, with something important to you. Something that requires stealth and finesse and shit.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about _stealth_ — I had been hoping that you would be able to gain access to those papers legally,” Mustang said, doing his best to hide his alarm. “But in general, I suppose, yes. Did you have a point?”

“No, I guess not,” Ed mumbled; a yawn, and the sound of rustling sheets as the younger man probably sat up in his bed. “Just, that fuckin _never_ happens. You hide shit from me, you don’t ask me for help with it,” he said. Guilt hit the general like a punch to the gut; whether that was actually strictly true or not, which was debatable, he certainly seemed to have given off this impression to Edward. 

“…Do I?” he asked, too busy processing all of these wayward thoughts to really come up with something much better at that particular moment. He gathered himself, and his thoughts, and managed to continue. “I’m sorry if it has ever seemed that way, Edward. I really do value your input.”

Another silence. He seemed to be considering his lover’s words.

“Goddamn,” Edward groused from the other end. “You’re being awful nice today. Did you hit your head or something?”

“I’m _always_ nice, Edward,” came Roy’s immediate response, full of a mostly feigned smugness. “ _You_ simply have a tendency to interpret everything as an attack.”

Ed growled.

“Asshole. Now that really _was_ an attack. I’m hanging up,” he declared, but Roy interrupted before he could actually do so.

“Wait, Edward,” the general said, and he heard no telltale _click_ on the other end of the line, so he must assume that Edward was still there. “I hope that my constant teasing hasn’t actually made you feel like I don’t value you or your contributions. Because I do,” he added, in case that hadn’t been clear. “Very much.” 

“Bastard,” Ed mumbled; after a moment, he added, reluctantly: “I guess I don’t _really_ think that. But it is true that you don’t really ask me for help,” he added, as if trying to justify himself.

Roy thought about it; he supposed that, these days, it was largely true, even if it was vastly hypocritical for Edward to bring it up, which Roy graciously decided not to mention. When the problems in his life were mostly political or diplomatic, which they were, Edward’s advice in these areas tended to be at once tempting and absolutely impractical. When he got involved with more than just advice, the younger man often made the situation worse, not better. 

Unbidden, Edward’s words from the night before came to him: _It’s like I can’t really help. Anything I do just makes the whole situation worse._

Except that wasn’t _true_ , the general realized as more thoughts and memories sprung up through his mind. Edward’s tendency towards violence when angered was inconvenient, true enough, but his radio interview had been politically brilliant, and more than made up for his violent outburst with Harriet. Besides that, Ed had given him a truly wonderful apology gift over the incident. Roy had finished two of the books from said gift already, in his spare time spent waiting at home, and they had been exactly what he hadn’t known he had wanted. It wasn’t really fair to keep holding that one incident against him.

In short, perhaps he hadn’t been giving Edward enough credit. Maybe a few opportunities to put his brilliance on display would do everybody some good.

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling genuinely bad. He hated to think that he might have been the one to plant the idea of Edward’s uselessness in his mind. “I’ll do better in the future. For now, would you be able to assist me in this?”

A long, loud yawn: Roy’s heart warmed at the sound. He had missed Edward deeply since his jailing — no, since their fight a week prior. 

“Yeah, yeah,” the younger man replied. “I’ll be at headquarters in an hour. Gotta throw some clothes on and stuff food in my face,” he said, and a smile spontaneously bloomed on the older man’s face. “Don’t worry, I’ll find somethin’ to pin these guys to the wire with.”

“I have every confidence that you will,” the general replied, and as he did, an idea sparked in his mind. He had wanted to say something else, so he did, although his mind continued to mull over the thought. “But before you go, one more thing. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me out to dinner this evening? Nothing too formal — maybe this one little Southern-style restaurant I know of. Would that be alright with you?”

Without missing a beat, Edward responded.

“You paying?” he asked, and of course even after so much time together, that was still his primary concern. Roy laughed.

“As always,” he replied.

“Then fuck yes.”

“Good. I’ll see you later, then?”

“Uh-huh,” came Edward’s response; apparently this also served as his good-bye, because he hung up immediately afterward. With a short chuckle, the older man followed suit, head awash with visions of his younger lover; but no time to dwell on that, now. He could feel himself on the edge of an idea, and he brought all of his considerable faculties to bear on the problem at hand. 

What if Edward _did_ find something proving they had been forged?

He rested his elbows on his desk and pressed his fingertips together in front of his mouth, staring off into the distance.

What if they could point to something that, without a doubt, showed that the station had been framed in order to take down one of Roy’s few allies? How could he best use this new information to his advantage?

The question sparked his vague idea into an actual plan, growing by the second in the confines of his mind as he pondered. Yes; perfect. This would be easy.

The telephone loomed before him, and once again he moved to pick it up.

*

Edward Elric, stunningly angry at nothing in particular, practically broke down the door to the Finance and Revenue Department with the force of his entrance. The room was wide and open, neatly organized, filled with, Ed guessed, close to fifteen desks, all snug in their little cubicles, and enough mad typing sounds to deafen a horse. Ed stalked right over to the closest cubicle, occupied by a tall blonde guy with his uniform jacket piled on his desk next to his typewriter, hard at work on something, though Ed didn’t really give a shit what that was. He took a hand to the back of the chair, then spun it around so the two men faced each other. The soldier started in his seat, more than a bit surprised at his sudden directional change.

“I need the files you assholes took from that radio station today,” Ed growled, taking more than a bit of satisfaction in the way he flinched.

“E-excuse me?” the guy said, looking quite taken aback. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re —”

“Save it for somebody who cares,” Ed interrupted, crossing his arms. “Some of your coworker jerks busted into the Oasis radio station this morning or late yesterday and accused the owners of tax evasion and embezzlement, shut the station down, then took the only evidence with you. I have a right to see it.”

“No you don’t,” the man replied, his brow furrowing, like he was thinking through it and things weren’t adding up. He crossed his arms in front of him. “The general public has no right to see tax files once they’ve been confiscated for investigation, not even if you’re directly part of the case. And you don’t even look like you’re from the station,” he said, looking Edward up and down and probably judging his fashion choices.

Ed took a deep breath and forced himself not to get all defensive. What would Al, or even Roy have done to get into the back, with the documents they really needed to see? He could almost hear Mustang’s smug-ass voice: _You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar, Fullmetal,_ he would have said, but honey was a _terrible_ flytrap, goddammit. He had tried, and it just fucking got you ants. He did shit his own way.

“I’m not,” he declared, with all kinds of confidence. “And I don’t fuckin’ have to be.” The answer came to him in a flash of brilliance: true enough, though leaving out certain inconvenient details. “I’ve been sent over as a contractor from internal security to review the evidence,” he said; the man’s demeanor changed immediately. He sat straighter and brushed his long bangs back out of his eyes. “Important people think the document has prob’ly been tampered with, and I’m the best guy to figure out whether it has or hasn’t.”

The man met this new assertion with a frown.

“I assure you, our team has experts in detecting forgeries —”

“Well, they can’t do the shit I can,” Edward said, not bothering to let him finish. “I’m the Fullmetal fucking Alchemist. What would take your guys three weeks to figure out will probably take five minutes,” he said, and he wasn’t even bragging. Well, maybe he was, a little bit, but it was still true. Not that he knew yet exactly how he was planning to do this, but he had a feeling that actually seeing the papers sitting in front of him would get his brain going.

The man stared at him in disbelief for a moment, two, the pause just long enough to get awkward.

“You’re kidding me,” he finally said, respect bordering on awe dawning on his face. “ _The_ Fullmetal Alchemist?”

Edward’s mood improved astronomically with just those few, short sentences.

“The one and only,” Edward replied, brightly, secretly hoping that the man would have something else complimentary to say.

“That’s amazing.” A pause. “Somehow, I thought you’d be taller,” he said, and although Edward didn’t grab the man by the throat or swing him around in the air or stomp on his face, the restraint was a Herculean effort. He kept the grin plastered on his face, wide and humorless and probably actually kind of scary.

“You would not _believe,_ ” he said, through gritted teeth, “how many times I’ve heard that.”

“Really? Huh,” the man said, as if he hadn’t expected that. Edward, still admirably under control, took a step back, and the other man — brown-haired, just a hint of stubble, irritatingly tall — stood up from his chair. “Well, if you’re here investigating for Internal Security, then I guess I can let you through,” he said, sounding unreasonably happy about it. Ed let out a deep breath, and patted himself on the back mentally for being able to keep his cool. Al would be proud. “I’m coming with you, though,” he added. 

“Eh, if it makes you feel better,” Edward said, folding his hands up behind his head. He didn’t care what this guy decided to do or not to do, as long as let Ed go where he needed to go without calling the cops on him. Everything was by the fucking book today, anyway — by a very _unusual_ book, granted, but whatever.

“It really does. Protocol and everything,” he said, with an apologetic grin, as if it really had nothing to do with him at all. “My name’s Mike, by the way,” he said, offering Ed a hand to shake. Ed hadn’t asked, but he shook the hand anyway, because he wasn’t a complete asshole.

“Ed. Nice to meet you,” he said, and the way the other man beamed at him when he said it made the brief inconvenience worth it. 

Actually, on second thought, it might not be so bad to have somebody else there. Having an objective observer there who could vouch for the fact that Ed actually hadn’t modified any of the evidence himself would probably be a good thing. Jumping through bureaucratic loopholes was never any fun

Mike didn’t say anything as he led Edward back, through a series of twisting hallways to a room on the right, though he kept shooting Ed curious glances the whole way. Once there, he pulled a set of keys from his pants pocket and unlocked it. The room beyond was no larger than a bedroom, packed with gray-metal shelves stuffed with all kinds of folders and books and things, with one tiny desk and chair combo in the corner, for the intrepid researcher’s convenience. Ed’s guide went straight to the closest shelf and started messing around with the folders on the middle shelf.

“If I’m right, the new stuff should be right about… ah, yes, here it is,” he said, drawing a thick manila folder out from between its siblings. He turned and extended it towards Edward. “I think this is what you’re looking for.” Ed couldn’t tell one manila folder from another, but it looked reasonably promising.

“Great, thanks,” he replied off-handedly as he plucked it from the other man’s hands and took it to the desk. He opened it, scanned the first page: sure enough, it seemed to be the tax reports for the Oasis radio station. He flipped to the second packet, which had “CONFISCATED” stamped on top in red letters. He rolled his eyes. Even the guys in taxes had a flair for the dramatic.

But whatever their questionable taste level, these did indeed seem to be the documents he was looking for. A quick glance through both showed him where the discrepancies lay; a zero added here and there throughout the document could really make an enormous difference, in the end, and whoever had edited it had done it in such a way that it looked like the top executives were skimming some money off the top without reporting it to revenue. But however they had done it, it certainly hadn’t been with alchemy — even a cursory examination of the pages was enough to show him that there were none of the telltale transmutation marks that would have told him otherwise.

Now done with the boring bit, Ed rustled around in his jacket pocket and pulled out several thick pieces of cardstock paper, about four square inches apiece, and a metal tool, like a pencil but silver and with a thinner, sharper tip. He took the cardstock pieces and folded them into quarters, then unfolded them again so they looked like upside-down, flattish pyramids; then, he took a pen from the pen-cup in front of him and labeled one “ _important_ ,” one “ _original(same page),”_ the next _“Original (different page),_ ”and the last “ _official_.” The man beside him gave him a look of confusion, but he didn’t bother to explain. The guy would figure it out shortly enough anyway.

With the metal tool and began to scrape at one of the forged numbers - gently, just enough to bring some of the ink away on the tip of his needle-like pointer. Carefully, he took the implement and scraped his sample into one of the pieces of cardstock — the one labeled _important_. He did the same with a bit of ink from a presumably unmodified number on the same page, then a bit from a different page in the same document, then some from the one that the military had been keeping on file, and put them all in their respective sample-holders.

At this point, seeing the curiosity in the bend of Mike’s brow, Ed couldn’t resist explaining his genius. He put an elbow up on the table — away from his precious samples, of course — and turned to his audience.

“See, this is the thing,” he said — Mike looked up at him with an expression of near-worship that Ed didn’t even pretend not to like. “It’s all about the ink. Not all inks are made the same way, y’know,” he said, pulling a notebook out of his other jacket pocket, picking up his pen again and beginning to draw as he talked. “Pen inks tend to be water-based, see, so they flow pretty easily and don’t clog up your pen.” A perfect circle appeared on the paper; then a smaller circle inside, equally perfect, then the symbol for water, then dozens more marks, words. Normally, he would just clap his hands to do these transmutations, but he needed to be able to show other people what he had done later. “Every company’s style of pen has different dyes or pigments in ‘em. You’d never know it by looking, ‘cause they’re all basically _black_ in the end, but they’re pretty different chemically. The other major kind of ink is typewriter ink, and those are really different — they’re oil-based, so they have a buttery kind of consistency, which is handy so they don’t drip all over the place, also it doesn’t dry out on the pad quite as badly. And then there are the different pigments and shit in each of ‘em, too. If you had access to all of the pen and typewriter manufacturing places, you could figure out exactly what somebody used to write anything just based on what the ink’s made of.” 

He finished the transmutation circle with a dramatic flourish, then tore that page out of the notebook and set it in front of the sample marked “ _important._ ” Immediately, he put pen to paper on another page of the notebook to begin a second circle, almost identical to the first but with the symbols for oil and carbon.

“Anyway, for various reasons, it’s pretty likely the forger used an ink pen and just mimicked the typewriter letters by hand, because that’s the fastest and easiest way. Even if they somehow managed to use a typewriter, the chances that it would have all of the same pigments and shit are slim to none. So, see, if it’s a forgery, then we’d expect to find different kinds of inks on the page, in the document, and between the documents. Get it?”

The other man nodded, watching intently — maybe he wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

“So… the transmutation circles. If you can transmute all the inks with the the same circle, then they’re all made of the same stuff, and it’s not a forgery.” 

“ _Probably_ not a forgery,” Ed corrected. There was still a chance it was, but that would take godlike skills to accomplish and similarly godlike skills to track down. The man nodded thoughtfully.

“And if you _can’t_ transmute them all with the same circle, then it is a forgery.”

“Bingo,” Edward replied, setting the second circle up on the table and flashing the other man a toothy grin. “Now, watch this.”

He tipped the ink sample from the _“Important”_ paper onto one of the transmutation circles, then put a hand to it: he focused his energy, his mind, and immediately the circle began to glow. The ink, as he suspected, didn’t move. Ed grinned, a fire in his eyes; he had been right.

“Um,” the guy said as Ed took his hand off the paper; it stopped glowing immediately, and Ed moved to the next one. “Was that… was that supposed to do something?”

“Nope. ‘Cause watch this — different sample, same circle.” He put the first sample back on its card, then put the second sample on the circle, one of the ones marked “ _original.”_ He focused on the circle again — this time, when the lines began to glow, the ink rose up off of the paper; just for fun, Ed turned it into a cube, then a tiny skull, then a needle, before letting it go back to its original form as a paint scraping. He turned to the other man, flashing teeth. “See? That one’s oil based, and that one’s water based. I knew it,” he said, and god _damn_ did it feel good to be fucking _useful_ again. “It got changed, it’s a fake.”

“Wow,” the man said, standing with his arms crossed in front of him. “And you figured out all of that by yourself?” Ed frowned, trying to work out whether it was an insult disguised as a compliment or not. But the man looked pleased, even awed, and so Ed decided he was really just too paranoid.

“Yeah, ‘course I did. It’s not that hard to figure out. Basic logic,” he said, and stood up from his chair. He made as if to gather all of the stuff up and take it out with him, but paused; if he took the evidence, then no one would be able to guarantee he hadn’t tampered with it in some way. Not like he _would_ edit it _,_ and not like he needed to, but he didn’t want to have to deal with that shit. He turned back to the man standing next to him.

“Listen. You.” He struggled for a moment to remember his guide’s name. “Mike,” he finally said, grateful that he could dredge it up. “You’re all about justice, right? The system working for the good of the people and all that.”

Mike blinked, looking puzzled, and shook his bangs out of his eyes.

“Um, yes?” he said, as if not sure what the right answer was. “I believe in doing the right thing, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Edward replied, pleased with himself. “Now, there are some good people who’re gonna get to know the inside of a jail cell real well if we can’t prove that they’re innocent. This shit here —” he gestured to his experiment beside him “— proves their innocence. Can I trust you to keep it safe and out of the way of anybody who would want to mess with it?”

“Of course,” Mike said, frowning. “But why would anybody want to tamper with it?”

His naivete was cute, but unhelpful.

“Well, somebody made the forgery in the first place, so obviously someone’s pretty invested in getting these people taken down. Anyway, great. Awesome,” he said, putting the ink chips back in their respective, labeled papers and folding them all up so that nothing would fall out. He handed them to the other man. “I’m trusting you, Mike. You think you can handle it?”

The soldier jumped into a salute immediately, as if he was under the impression that Ed was still his superior officer; and if he thought so, well, Ed wasn’t going to disabuse him of that notion.

“Yes sir!” he said, with a look of forced determination. “Of course, sir. Thank you for entrusting this to me.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Edward said, making for the door, and trying to remember where they were in relation to Roy’s office. “Just make sure I don’t regret it,” he added over his shoulder.

“Oh, you won’t, sir,” Mike said, and Ed sure hoped he was right.

*

Staring out the window, mind elsewhere, Roy sipped at his mug of coffee and watched the comings and goings in the courtyard below him. It wasn’t that anything particularly interesting was happening outside — in fact, quite the opposite — but rather that he had already finished all of the sinister plotting he could do for the moment, and all that was left was to wait.

Roy thought of himself as a patient man, but the past several weeks had begun to make him question that analysis. He certainly didn’t _feel_ patient, waiting here so uselessly for everyone else in his life to do something.

Edward was probably over at the tax review offices already, Havoc was more than likely having wild sex with his lovely girlfriend in a supply closet, despite Roy’s thoughtful warning — shame he wasn’t allowed to take part in that, either — while Fuery and Falman tried to work out what had happened to the people who had been captured in the raids several nights before, and Breda worked on a strategy for getting them out. And Hawkeye…

Thinking of her made him suddenly nervous: right now, she would be in the council chamber, trying her best to hold the fort against a legion of men who had been playing politics since she had been a child. He knew she hated it all, the mind games and the posturing, though she had never said as much to him, but she was doing it anyway: the perfect soldier, no matter the situation. The fact that he had been forced to put her there still grated on him, the guilt a near-physical thing.

If he had been more discreet about his relationship with Edward, about the nature of said relationship, maybe none of this would have ever happened; maybe he would have been there to combat Weimar’s genocidal plans himself, and maybe the raids never would have happened, and none of those people would have died.

After all these years, and everything he had done to avoid it, more deaths on his head. Laughing at the unexpected cruelty of it did not seem so unreasonable. For him to have tried so hard, and for so long, only to be faced with _this_ in the end… For the most part, he had managed to keep his mind off of it with reasonable success — as much as their deaths sickened and haunted him, he knew that focusing on finding and saving the ones who were still alive took precedent over mourning the dead. But now, alone in this room, he felt his uselessness once again, and it pressed up against the wounds of his failure. 

He grimaced, bowing his head forward, clenching the armrests of his chair. Everyone else could help but him, how could he ever have been so careless — 

A knock to the door interrupted the course of his thoughts. He recognized that precise rap, not overloud and yet piercingly insistent: Hawkeye. Even a long and frustrating council meeting would have no effect on her outward composure. A long sigh was his only concession to his own exhaustion, his general lethargy; he sat up straight in his chair, folded his hands up on a level with his chest, elbows propped on the armrests, but did not turn back around to face her before saying:

“Come in.”

The door swung open; a tap of boots across the wooden floor.

“Working hard, I see,” she said, an edge of amusement to her voice. Today, he couldn’t even be bothered to pretend at business for her benefit. She would know, anyway. She always did.

“Find me something worthwhile that urgently requires my attention, Major, and I will gladly get down to business,” he said, dryly, finally swiveling his chair back around to face his subordinate. She stood with her hands folded behind her, not a hair on her head out of place, not a muscle twitching. Sometimes, he envied her that discipline.

A moment’s pause; she gave him a searching look. 

“Forgive my saying so, sir, but you don’t look too good,” she said. He winced at the unforgiving bluntness, and wondered just what he looked like, that would inspire her to say such a thing. Old, probably, and tired — tired of seeing people die when he could have prevented it, tired of carrying the burden of this nation alone, tired of having so much power, and yet so little.

“I’m sorry I don’t match your standards of presentability today. It’s been a trying series of days,” he said, and immediately regretting it. If it had been trying for him, what had it been like for her? To her had been dealt the responsibility of actually dealing with the pack of hyenas that made up the governmental council — he hadn’t done anything half so important

But she, always mindful of others, threw him a look like worry, the corners of her eyes tightening.

“It has,” she agreed, the line of her shoulders relaxing. Another thoughtful pause; her lips worked for a moment around silence, as if deciding whether or not to speak. “Sir, is there something bothering you?” she finally asked. He sighed. Sometimes he really hated that the woman was so perceptive.

He paused for a moment, trying to decide whether admitting his concerns — his _concerns?_ What kind of a word was that, to encompass the sins of an empire? — would be appropriate or not, if it would break the professional boundary the two of them had held up so carefully over the course of their time together. 

“It’s nothing, Major,” he said, the lie easy and familiar on his tongue. He rested his elbows on the table, his hands clasped up in front of his mouth. “So tell me, how did the council meeting go?” he asked. She was not fooled; she acknowledged his change of subject with a slight frown, but respected it nonetheless.

“Major developments, actually,” she said, and his pulse sped up. “We have successfully challenged the false police report from several days ago. It has been pulled from circulation and is being examined by a number of independent parties whose names are not known to anyone but the Fuhrer himself.” A wave of relief hit Mustang then; he weakened upon hearing it, head bowing as if his fear had been keeping him straight, and rested his forehead on his intertwined knuckles. “We should be in the clear within the next several days.”

“Thank god,” he said, full of fervent and genuine gratitude, though not towards any deity. “No, thank _you_ , Major,” he corrected himself, lifting his head back up again to look her in the eye. “You are a miracle, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have you on my team. How did you do it?”

Even Riza smiled a bit at this praise, or perhaps at his sudden change of attitude.

“Well, as much as I appreciate your gratitude, sir, I must admit that Corporal Schiezka deserves it much more. Without her, I wouldn’t have had a chance.” 

“Hm,” Roy replied, considering this. He gestured to the couch, and said: “Sit down. Tell me what happened.”

Somewhat awkwardly, as if not expecting such a gesture of hospitality, she did, sitting straight as a pole and folding her hands on her lap. To be honest, he wasn’t even quite sure why he had asked; perhaps he simply wanted company. He had spent enough time alone today. 

With a military briskness, she ran through everything she had been doing since the Minister of Justice had revealed his revised version of the reports — although she had found consistent evidence that the books containing the reports had been modified from their original versions, she had found no proof that the version she had presented to the council was the original and correct one. But then, in a moment of benevolent coincidence, she had found Schiezka, and the girl’s powers had once again saved them. 

“I see,” he finally said, shifting in his chair. “Remind me to give Ms. Schiezka a bonus.” He frowned, suddenly realizing that such a thing would make it look like he had bribed her into testifying for him. Not ideal. “Well, once all of this has calmed down. I trust you’ll remember?” he said, and she nodded.

“Of course, sir.” He watched her, sitting so elegantly, eyes clear on his, and wondered what he had done to earn such unconditional loyalty. His mouth moved again without him really thinking about it.

“And just in case I have been too distracted to say it up until this point, I would like to make sure you know how much I appreciate everything you have been doing for me recently. I know it has been difficult for you.” She looked down at the floor, then back up again.

“I’m proud to do it for you, sir,” she replied, without a moment of hesitation. “Anything I can do, I will.” That admission seemed almost _too_ genuine, too heartfelt — she changed the topic almost immediately. “So… How is the work on your court case coming?” 

He glanced at the work piled on his desk; to the left, witness statements, stacks of information on those willing to testify on his behalf — including one Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, who had written a most… effusive affidavit and presented it to Roy’s staff, so he had heard, with tears in his eyes. The general himself had not been present at that particular moment, a small mercy: of all the people with whom he could theoretically speak about his relationship with Edward, having that conversation with Armstrong seemed by far the least appealing. 

Despite missing the man’s grand entrance, Roy had been over the paper, and all of the other recorded statements, a thousand times by now. A formal collection of the affidavits would be forthcoming, soon. To the right sat the drafts of his opening statement, his closing statement, the arguments in between. If the trials were fair, he would be allowed access to any evidence his opponent would be bringing into the courtroom long before the trial, to better prepare for it, but a fair trial was a foreign and exotic thing in this country. With the exception of the material published in the newspaper articles, he knew nothing of what his opponents were going to claim about him, of the horrid ways in which they would attempt to defame his character…

He shook his head, rubbing a temple with two fingers.

“As well as it can, I suppose,” he said, tiredly; he knew he had signed up for all the responsibility in the world when he had decided he was going to become Fuhrer, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating to have all of it thrown at him at once, and then take away all of his power to really do anything about it. 

The trial would be held in just over a week. He hoped everything would come together in time, but he knew that hope could be frail in the face of reality. His lack of power cut at him like a physical thing; he had always felt it, always since Ishbal, his own insignificance as one small fly in the great web of the military’s plans. And until the day when he became Fuhrer, he would have to cope with this fact.

Historically, he had been quite good at this. He had his… hobbies, to help him relax, to renew in him his feeling of control.

His thoughts drifted, unchecked, into forbidden waters. Really, there was nothing he would like more than to take Edward to bed, to order him to get on his knees, to control his every sensation, make him cry out in pain and frustration and _want…_

Mentally, he kicked himself. He shouldn’t be thinking about this, shouldn’t be getting all frustrated and horny over the thought of his lover on his back, head lolled to the side, gasping — Dammit. He clenched his fists, willing the feeling away. He needed to be there for Edward in whatever way he needed, even if that was a decidedly non-sexual one for now.

But no matter what he tried to do for Edward, he knew there was no way to erase the trauma. There was nothing he could do for Ed, nothing he could do for Hawkeye, and even with all of the work his team was doing, there was no guarantee that any of the Ishballan or Amestrian captives would survive until he was reinstated in his position of power, if indeed he ever was.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against his knuckles, shoulders hunched, so he could hide his sudden paucity of will behind his hands, so he wouldn’t have to see Hawkeye watching him with such tightness at the corners of her eyes, and she wouldn’t see the way his own expression had begun to twist and misalign. 

“General?” she asked, and it took him a moment — a breath; in, out, again — to respond.

“I’m fine, Major,” he said, because he was, or he would be. “I apologize. I’ll collect myself again momentarily.”

And she wasn’t one for empty reassurances, nor for gentle touch, so they just sat there, the silence between them palpable in its intensity. Another deep breath.

“I got in touch with a lawyer today,” he said, to quell the emptiness of the room, and because she probably ought to know. He heard her shift on the couch, as if unsure what to make of this.

“But sir,” she said, and he could almsot hear the furrow on her brow as she spoke. “You know you’re not allowed to have a lawyer represent you at the trial.”

“Yes, Major, I am aware,” he said, finally straightening up and resting his hands back on his desk. “However, that is not why I called him. I called because I believe we finally have enough information to run a successful libel suit against Guy Harriet.”

She betrayed none of her thoughts on this matter, and though he shouldn’t have been surprised by this, he found himself almost disappointed. Part of him had wanted her to gasp and look shocked so he could feel appropriately pleased with himself. He hadn’t felt pleased with himself in entirely too long. 

“I see,” she said instead, hands still folded in her lap, back straight as anything. “And does the lawyer agree?”

“He agreed to meet me tomorrow to discuss details, but he seems to think we have a good shot. And he’s willing to look over my materials for the trial, too, so we can have an actual legal perspective on the case.”

Hawkeye nodded, her lips pressed together. 

“That’s good news,” she said; but this time she sounded almost cross, as if she was annoyed at something. His unspoken question was answered in moments, when she said: “I’m sorry I didn’t think to do that myself.”

He laughed at that, which seemed to surprise her: she didn’t seem to have any idea just how _glad_ he was to have had the opportunity to do something for himself. He supposed that really, she didn’t have to know.

“Now, now, my dear Hawkeye,” he said, leaning back in his chair and settling himself into the armrests. “You don’t think I need someone to do _everything_ for me, do you? I am still capable of dressing myself in the mornings, after all, am I not?”

Thankfully, she seemed to relax at this. He hadn’t learned to joke for nothing, after all.

“Only just barely,” she replied, perfectly deadpan. “And sometimes I wonder,” she added, giving him a very pointed look as she got to her feet. Roy clutched at his heart as if deeply hurt.

“Ah, have you no faith in me, Major?” he said, drama oozing from every pore. “You wound me.”

“I’m sure you can deal with it, sir,” she said, and was that a hint of a smile? No, surely not. Even so, he had to smile in return, just in case.

“If I must,” he said, with a long-suffering sigh. “But in any case, I suppose you have actual work to get back to that I shouldn’t keep you from.” He paused, and _really_ looked her over; the beginnings of purple bruises were beginning to show under her eyes, proof of her exhaustion. He wondered how she was actually feeling; unlike normal humans, Hawkeye usually didn’t start to show the stress until it had gotten fairly bad. “In all seriousness, though. Thank you for everything you’ve been doing. I know that what I’ve been asking of you is not the easiest thing for you, and I greatly appreciate everything you have done.”

A curt nod was her only acknowledgement of his thanks, but he hoped she had taken it to heart silently, in her way.

“Will that be all, sir?” she asked, without inflection.

“That will be all. Dismissed,” he said; she saluted, then turned to walk out, and left the general to his thoughts.

*

Edward burst into Roy’s office not long after, giving not a single shit for decorum or restraint or the continued health and safety of Roy’s furniture, but honestly Roy preferred him that way.

“Edward,” he said, doing an excellent job at keeping his expression neutral. “Please tell me you have good news.”

Ed didn’t respond with words, at first; instead, he crossed the room and walked around Roy’s desk to seat himself on the edge, _right_ above Roy’s lap.

“Fuck yes. The best,” he said, positioning his left leg so that he was straddling Roy’s lap without even touching him, his legs spread quite as wide as his smirk. With a soft groan of frustration and a great force of effort, Roy dragged his eyes up from Ed’s _quite_ prominent crotch, avoided any jokes with the word “debriefing” in them, looked his lover in the eyes and spoke like a sane man.

“Excellent. Fill me in,” he said, trying to maintain at least a hint of his professional decorum, even under this kind of pressure.

Edward’s response was a heavy-lidded look and a deepening smirk.

“My pleasure,” he purred, and Roy found to his shock that those words and their heavily suggestive tone had robbed him of speech entirely. Even after all this time, his self-control was truly a poor match for Edward Elric at his best. “We’ve never done it that way before, but I’m game. What would you like me to —” a meaningful pause “— ‘fill you in’ _on,_ General?”

Roy took a deep breath, gripped his armrests, and steeled himself for what he suspected was going to be a _very_ long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me! Hope you liked it. 
> 
> Don't worry, there will be porn again soon XD In the meantime, if you miss my porn, you can find some more on my [tumblr](mthaytr.tumblr.com), along with lots and lots of nsfw art of mostly the RoyEd and Eruri varieties. My ask box is always open.
> 
> But if you liked, please let me know! Your comments give me life.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *comes out of hiding* Hi guys?
> 
> Sorry this took so long. It wouldn't have, except I spent a lot of time writing porn that is unrelated to this, much of which is now posted here also. Check it out if you're looking for more kinky RoyEd goodness! And if you want to get it when I post it, you can come find me on my tumblr, where I also talk to people and, like, participate in the fandom and shit XD
> 
> (also the first two or so chapters of this are getting revamped. I'm posting as I progress so you can go check it out whenever!)
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me you guys, it means a lot <3 Anyway, enjoy!

Relevant Summary: 

Ed is out of jail, and Roy won't play with him out of fear that Ed isn't really over the assault yet. They are both incredibly sexually frustrated.

Meredith left Weimar after discovering her husband's collection of creepy photographs. Weimar doesn't know what has become of his wife, just that he hasn't seen her in days.

The radio station that played Ed's confession has been framed for tax evasion and taken off the air. Roy is working on that, and also working on suing the reporter who started all of this for libel. Madame Christmas is using her network to try to gather all the information she can.

*

The great expanse of room before her was nothing so much as a foreign country, unfamiliar to her; she stood in the doorway to the hotel hall, unable to move, and stared at the empty whiteness of it. After too many moments, she became aware that the porter was shifting restlessly behind her — he must think her so strange — and so she swallowed her misgivings and stepped inside.

“Thank you. Could you put it on the bed?” she asked, gesturing to where she wanted her suitcase. The porter did as requested — she pulled out five hundred cenz in coins to give him; he took them with a nod of gratitude and left her alone with her thoughts.

She didn’t even open her suitcase, at first, although that would have been her instinct in any other situation; to organize, to arrange, to make right. Instead, she sank down into the soft cushion of the armchair and put her head in her hands.

What was she supposed to do now? A terrible book burning a hole into her suitcase, the careful neatness of her life, destroyed — but what had it really meant, in the end, anyway?

Casting about for a plan, she sorted first through her thoughts to those who could help her. Her mother perhaps? She shook the thought off as soon as it arrived. Her mother was old and infirm and could do little for her now. But perhaps one of her friends, women she had known for years, might be willing to take her in for a time — she wasn’t so desperate that she needed to show up, unannounced, on their porch, but staying in a hotel indefinitely was neither appealing nor tenable. She needed someplace to stay, to collect herself, to re-evaluate her world and her life as she tried to figure out the most crucial question: _what next?_

She stared at the telephone, at once longing and afraid. 

But who would she call? Sarah Grumman? The woman had always been kindly to her, although that was not necessarily the same as _kind_ — Meredith suspected that Sarah’s husband loved her in part for her catlike intelligence and canniness. She was very good at taking any situation and playing it to her own — and her husband’s — advantage.

But did she even care anymore what happened to her husband’s political career? Could she let him continue to play this game, now that she knew the moves he had made to arrive where he was? Was simply refusing to be a part of it herself enough, or should she tell someone? Could she betray the man who had been everything to her for so many years?

She twisted a curl of her hair between two fingers, gaze unfocused and distant as her thoughts ran, playing out each scenario. A friend’s house might offer temporary refuge, but she would have to leave again shortly. Those would be the first places he would look for her, and she did not want to be found.

Husband and wife would meet again, she knew, but when it happened, it would be on her terms.

No, not there. But then, where? What decision could she make that she could live with?

A glacial dread crept up on her, a thousand pounds of force against her own weak will, slowly pushing, crushing — 

She was lost, adrift on currents much larger than herself, and the internal compass that had guided her steadily for years now swung wildly every which way. Her True North had collapsed, and setting sail again would first require her to decide where she was going.

Loneliness stung her hard. She was alone, and she would continue to be alone.

But she didn’t cry; for the moment, she had moved to a place beyond tears. She took a deep breath and remembered herself. Then, gracefully, she rose to her feet, opened her suitcase, and began the comforting, domestic rituals that would begin her life anew.

*

The slam of the front door echoed through Weimar’s house, the sound harsh in his ears.

Stepping across the marble tile of the entry, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was alone. Meredith had not been here to greet him the previous day: occasionally he had heard the tapping and scraping noises that signaled life above, but she hadn’t spoken to him. Still, although perhaps objectively everything was the same as it was yesterday, the air tasted stale in his mouth, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different, that he was truly alone.

“Meredith?” he called out, half on instinct. There was no response: silence, then the overloud tap of shoes on stone. He closed his umbrella, shook it to get the worst of the water off of it, then set it in the umbrella stand, jaw clenched. 

The displeased growl of his stomach shook him from his daze; he began to stalk across the entry towards the kitchen without a conscious decision, his automail port aching with every step. He stood for a moment in the doorway of the kitchen, surveying his domain: spotless, as ever, but there was no meal laid out for him, as there had been the night before. He would have to make do himself.

He marched over to the cabinets and swung them open, a strange determination building in him. If this was her game, he could play it: he was no child, to starve without her attention. A few moments of rummaging revealed a loaf of bread and little else. He slammed it down on the counter, pulling a knife from the knife block and sawing a hunk off of the end, which he proceeded to chew with a vicious determination. It was dry, unlovely, and he ate it without relish, but it was enough. He had lived on worse.

The emptiness of the house drew tighter in around him as he stood there, staring at the loaf of crusty bread with its tip lopped off. This was not a house made to be lived in alone. 

Briefly, it occurred to him that Meredith was alone in it all day, and he had at least the compassion necessary for the lurch of realization as he wondered, _Is this how she feels all the time?_ But the thought, ephemeral at best, disappeared entirely as the sudden, sharp ring of the doorbell interrupted his musings. 

The first thought that sped through him upon hearing the bell was _Maybe she’s back, maybe this was a misunderstanding,_ and then, inexplicably, _Maybe she’s forgiven me._ But he realized how ridiculous that was in moments. Meredith lived here: she did not need to ring the doorbell.

Shoulders hunched, a slight limp in his walk, he stalked back over to the front door and put his eye to the peep-hole. 

He had been correct. The person standing on his stoop, every so often glancing over his shoulder, was not Meredith, but a young man in his thirties with a scraggly kind of stubble making its way across his chin, and a brown hat. It took Weimar a moment to recognize the man, but once he did the knowledge shot, cold, through him — because there stood Guy Harriet, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other as he checked his surroundings, distress clearly visible on his face.

In the past ten years or so that they had been working together, Weimar and Harriet had met in person only a handful of times, and those mostly towards the beginning of their acquaintanceship. Meeting in person was far too dangerous for them most of the time — there was a significant chance that they might be seen and recognized, that someone might remember this at an inconvenient time. The success of Weimar’s plans depended entirely on the illusion that he was in no way linked to them.

So, it was with a flash of anger that he slammed the door open to stand with his body squared in front of the other man.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Weimar growled, face growing red beneath his beard. “What could possibly be going through your mind right now? This is the absolute _worst_ time for you to stand around like an idiot on my doorstep. Get inside,” he snapped, to which the man responded by scrambling in through the door. 

“Hey, calm the hell down. There’s no goddamn reason to be mad at me,” Harriet shot back, once the door had shut behind him and he was safely ensconced in the house. “I waited until I was sure you were home and nobody else was around to come up to the door. I’m not an idiot.”

The man took his bowler cap off without invitation and shook the water off of it, then hung it on the coat rack. His jacket followed close behind.

Weimar watched the man making uninvited use of his space with some irritation, but decided that was not the most pressing issue at hand.

“What was so important that it couldn’t wait for a more appropriate form of communication?” he asked, beginning to walk towards his office. Harriet followed.

“First of all, don’t give me that,” the reporter snapped back: apparently Weimar had hit some kind of raw nerve. “It is _very_ difficult for me to get in touch with you, so don’t give me that,” the man said, sounding irritated. “I’m not allowed to call you and I certainly can’t see you at Central HQ. I would’ve used my normal courier, but...” He drifted off uncomfortably. Weimar opened the door to his office, ushered his visitor through, then followed and sat down behind his large desk. Harriet picked the leftmost of the two chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

The general took a deep breath and reminded himself to be calm, to be collected, that if he wasn’t in full control of his emotions, then he would be useless. He took a deep breath. It was easier said than done, but he managed.

“Today, for some reason, you couldn’t do that,” Weimar summarized, prompting the other man to continue. 

“Well, we’ve got so many assistants running around the Central Times office that it’s normally easy to pull a different one off every time I need to get a message to you.” The man began to fidget in his seat like a child, a sheen of sweat beginning to glisten on his forehead. “But I’m, uh, kind of a bit of a _persona non grata_ at my workplaceat the moment.” he said with a bit of a sheepish laugh, scratching lightly at his chin as he looked decidedly elsewhere. “Everything I did there was under pretty heavy scrutiny.” Weimar’s bushy eyebrows rose. _And you still thought it was a good idea to come here?_ He clenched his fist atop the table, the only outlet for his rage.

“And may I ask... _why_ are your coworkers so unhappy with you?” Weimar asked, foreboding building in his gut with the anger. This meant nothing good. 

Harriet turned back to him, and when he opened his mouth to speak, the laughing embarrassment left his blue eyes, and they grew cold, cold.

“Because that Mustang fucker officially accused me of libel, that’s fucking why,” Harriet growled, his rare fury flashing out from behind his charming facade. “He’s taking me to court over this shit. And he told all of the other newspapers in the city the minute he did it.”

Perhaps he should have expected it, but still, this answer struck Weimar like a blow.

“The other papers’ve been calling up my paper all day, trying to get an interview with me or a quote or something,” Harriet said, rage cooling to a thick disgust. “And it’s not like they thought they could actually get me to give a statement — they just wanted to rub it in our faces, make sure _we_ knew that _they_ knew.”

Clearly, Mikhael had underestimated the other general. He had never expected Mustang to be able to collect enough evidence to make a trial a viable possibility — and he guessed that the Flame Alchemist was smart enough not to start a suit for libel without a solid body of evidence. Taking Harriet to court and _losing_ would be the final nail in his coffin. No: he wouldn’t have filed the suit if he wasn’t incredibly confident in his ability to win it. But he had to wonder just _who_ had helped him forge his evidence, who would be willing to step up and defend his pedophile ways, even for large sums of cash.

He didn’t know, but he was going to find out, and then he was going to find out what it would take to get Mustang’s witnesses to change sides. These witnesses had a price for which they would sell even their most deeply-held values, and Mustang had found it. If Mustang could find it, then he could, too.

Anger was a steady drumbeat in his heart. He should have been paying more attention to what Mustang’s team was doing, spending all of his manpower analyzing that man’s moves and counter-moves and really playing the game. But the number of people whom he would trust with such sensitive investigations were few and far between, and most of them were in Aerugo or working on the Ishballan problem. 

Mustang, however, had no such conflicting concerns. He could spend all of his energy keeping himself in power, and fucking his little catamite on the side. Weimar had no such luxuries.

And Meredith wasn’t even here tonight to comfort him, to massage his aching leg and soothe his hurt with her voice, because she had _left,_ because she had decided to believe a couple of faggots above her own husband, had put their value above his own.

He felt a primal growl building up in his throat; it came out in his voice as next he spoke.

“That son of a bitch,” Weimar said, clenching his fists on top of his desk. 

“Who the hell does he think he is,” the reporter responded, looking relieved that Weimar had taken it as calmly as he had. It was a close thing, but he kept up the façade. “Parades around like he’s the fucking Fuhrer.”

This comment touched something vicious in the General. Mustang wasn’t the fucking Fuhrer, and he never would be, if Mikhael Weimar had anything to say about it.

“So, what’re we gonna do about it?” Harriet continued, noticeably cheerier as it became apparent that Weimar was on his side. He kicked his feet up to rest them on the front of the other man’s desk, relaxing into the cushions of his chair. Weimar scowled briefly, but said not a word about it. Now was not the time to impart proper manners to the people he worked with.

The general thought carefully for a moment, going through the options in his mind. That would depend on several factors. 

“Do you know yet when the court date is?” Weimar asked, lacing his brows together as he sat in deep thought.

“Two weeks. Mustang apparently pulled in a crapload of old favors to get it to happen so fast,” Harriet responded, disgust dripping from his voice. “I bet he _wanted_ it to happen before his own trial, but even he couldn’t make it happen so quickly,” he said with an ugly laugh.

Ah: it was all beginning to come clear. Harriet’s actual trial was more or less unimportant. If Mustang was found innocent at his trial, then Harriet would be found guilty, and vice versa. This was a scare tactic — a scare tactic, and a way to drum up sympathy from the public and the judges. A formal suit for slander would go a long way towards increasing his standing in the judges’ eyes; not as much as Harriet being convicted would, but still.

Although Weimar hated to think of it, there was a very real possibility that if things kept going the way they were, the trial would herald Mustang’s return to power, and the force of his own momentum would make him even more dangerous than before.

In short, if he wanted to purge his country of the deep rot it had begun to acquire, he was going to have to act quickly, and perhaps take some drastic measures.

It was too early, too soon for his plans to be put in to action. And yet…

An idea hit him, then, without warning: an idea with the force of an arrow, or a bullet. A disgusting, terrible idea, but somehow also brilliant.

He was going to have to stage an assassination. No, not of Mustang, although the thought had occurred to him more than once: he suspected that would go poorly. Flame was a monster, and Fullmetal as dangerous and unpredictable as a gas leak, and his assassins would never get close. Even if they did, the assassination of a general would inspire a national investigation, and Weimar’s name would very likely be dragged into it.

But if he could set up an assassination and a probable culprit all in one go…

It all made sense, and yet somehow, the thought sat in his stomach, made it grow heavy and sick.

Sometimes he _did_ wonder what kind of a man he was, whether God would forgive his panoply of sins when he died. He was the sort of man who knew that sometimes, lesser evils had to be committed for the greater good, but he had always acted out of love for his country.

“I see,” Weimar said, tapping a thumb slowly on the table. Then, he sat up to his full height, imposing and lordly on his throne. “Thank you for letting me know so quickly. Rest assured, I have this well under control,” he said, and he did. He rubbed his dry tongue against the roof of his mouth, hoping to wet it again.

Harriet seemed to brighten at his words; this expression of blind faith should have soothed him, but it did not.

“Really?” said the reporter, in the tone of a man who isn’t really asking. “That’s great news! Can I ask what the master plan is?”

“No, you may not,” Weimar replied, with only a fraction of the harshness he felt. “Now, if you would excuse me, I need to get to work.” He got to his feet slowly, his right leg giving off a faint screech as he moved. “I will see you out,” he finished, leaving no room for argument.

“Okay. Thanks a million, boss,” Harriet said with a smile, and it was all Weimar could do not to snap at him, not to tell him to wipe that stupid smile off his face, because everything that would have to happen now would be _Weimar’s_ sin. 

He cleared his throat, and spoke.

“You’re very welcome,” he said, instead of all the things he wanted to say. He walked forward, through the office door and into the entrance hall, where he picked up the reporter’s jacket and coat. Then, indicating that the man should follow, Mikhael strode through the rest of the house to the back door that led into his yard and then into the world. 

“I assume you can see yourself out from here?” he said, handing the other man his coat and hat. At least it seemed to have stopped raining: the moon shone full and bright through the windows, the only remnant of the earlier rains the occasional shadow across its face.

“I sure can,” Harriet said, taking them. “Really. Thanks for everything.”

Weimar did not have the self-control to answer politely, so he did not answer at all.

Once he saw Harriet disappear into the trees and shut the door, Mikhael let out the breath he had been holding. As he did, he sagged, his posture that of a bent old man, not a General in the prime of his life. Slowly, without energy, he began to shuffle through the hall into the kitchen.

“Meredith?” he called out, mournfully, hoping that something had changed, that she was there… “Meredith?” he tried again, softly: but there was no response, only the vast emptiness of his house around him. He truly felt it, then, for the very first time.

*

Many more people stared at them during dinner, now, than had not so long ago. Roy supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, they were center of a media hailstorm at the moment: of course they would be recognized, and of course people would stare. He comforted himself with the knowledge that the public would eventually lose interest, like they did with everything. Until then, they were just going to have to pretend not to notice.

Edward was not pleased by this turn of events, and not very good at ignoring it, either. He never said as much, but Roy saw it in the way his eyes darkened, his lips pulling back from his teeth, every time he turned his head and caught a glimpse of someone nakedly watching them, fascinated.

And it was a shame, really, because the conversation between the two of them was easy and light, flitting back and forth from obscure alchemical theory to the latest movie opening up in theaters ( _I hear they have sound now — you mean, like, the actors talk and stuff? Out loud? No fuckin way, Winry’s gonna go crazy when she hears about this shit)_ to the lamentable state of the university’s library, which Ed complained about every time the opportunity arose.

But then Edward would glimpse some other dinner group pointing at them, and it was back to raised hackles and threatening stares.

At one point, a pair of women had appeared with a camera and a notebook, respectively, and Roy had had to clench his lover’s metal hand atop the table to keep the man from committing a double homicide.

But now they had returned home, the relative safety of that public space given up in favor of something much more nebulous, more dangerous. Ed stalked across the living room and flopped down onto the couch to stare sullenly at the ground. He held his body stiffly, as if anticipating attack, and Roy’s heart went out to him.

He knew what his lover wanted: punishment, pain, reassurance, all rolled into one, in the way only the general could deliver.But he also knew that somewhere behind Ed’s sullen anger lay fear — fear of judgement, fear of abandonment, and another, less certain, less easily described.

Ed watched the older man follow behind, a challenge in his eyes. All of the easy comfort of their earlier conversation was gone, now, as Ed steeled himself.

Ed, too, knew what he wanted, just as well as both knew he was afraid of getting it.

That in itself was not strange: Edward had always been a bit afraid of his more primal needs, afraid they left him vulnerable, afraid they meant he was weak. Before, Roy had understood that what they both needed was for him to break Ed out of it, to teach him that this fear was not necessary. This time, though, the fear ran deeper. It touched something at the core of him, and Roy didn’t quite know what he should do.

For a moment, he stood in the wooden frame of the entryway, eyes roving across Edward’s body as he sat sprawled out on the general’s couch. Silently, lips pursed, Roy laid it all out for himself, tallying his knowns and unknowns, adding them up and putting them together in the faint hope that this would come clear.

On the one hand, it was obvious that Edward wanted it dearly — he had said as much himself, repeatedly — and if Roy was being honest with himself, he did as well. Telling Edward to stop the night before, when he had been all up in Roy’s lap and practically begging, had been nothing less than torture.

On the other hand, he wasn’t sure that he trusted Edward to knowwhat he wanted, yet. 

It hadn’t even yet been a week since the attack. Could he really recover in such a short time? Surely the man needed time to figure out what he was feeling, to come to terms with everything that had happened, before he could honestly and safely submit.

On the other hand, if there were a third hand, hadn’t he said over and over again that trust was at the core of everything they did together? After all that, could he really tell Edward he didn’t trust the man’s self-assessment? If he did, he knew he might damage that fragile thing that had been growing between them, perhaps damage it irreparably. That was the very last thing that he wanted. 

He inhaled sharply through his nose, chastising himself: he really was a hypocrite. How could he ever expect Edward to talk to him about his problems, about his fears or concerns, if Roy himself couldn’t return the favor?

“You just gonna stand there or what?” Edward said, never quite looking up to meet the general’s eyes. The black button-up shirt paired with a high ponytail was a good look on him, though Roy couldn’t help but wish it were a bit _less_ good. He wanted whatever decision he made to be relatively objective, made in deference to careful logic, but objectivity was very difficult when he knew how easy it would be to take off that shirt, and how Edward would look when he did.

“My apologies,” Mustang said, sweeping through the room to take over the armchair sitting perpendicular to the couch that Edward owned so effortlessly. “I was lost in thought for a moment.”

“Yeah? What about,” Edward said, in the tone of one trying not to sound interested. He threw an arm over the back of the couch and glowered at the ceiling.

“Well, your behavior, for one,” Roy said, his flame-gloves heavy in his pocket. Oh, he wanted to take them out, to don the symbols of his station and the power that came with them, the power that Edward had freely given him, but he restrained himself. It wasn’t the time yet. They needed to talk this out before he made any kind of move. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and fixing Ed under the intensity of his stare. “I have heard from a reliable source that you have been engaging in dangerous activities again.”

Edward tensed, flushing to his ears upon hearing those words.

“Yeah? So what of it,” he snapped, the surliness of his words and tone contrasting with the expression on his face in a way that Roy recognized. He closed his eyes for a moment, collecting himself. He was going to deal with this like an adult, no matter how frankly lickable Edward’s collarbones looked, peeking out from behind his shirt.

“Edward, I recognize what you’re doing,” he finally said, opening his eyes again. “You’re trying to satisfy your need for adrenaline, and simultaneously make me angry, in the hope that I’ll be forced to punish you.”

Edward flinched, as if the blow had been physical. Judging by the look on his face, he hadn’t thought his motivations would be so easy to read.

“That’s not… fuck,” the blonde said, turning a halfhearted glare in the older man’s direction, as if mildly annoyed that he had been seen through. “Okay, yeah, fine,” he said, turning defiant golden eyes up to lock on the general’s. There was discomfort there, certainly, and some degree of embarrassment, but also that strange brand of deliberate and absolute certainty that was Edward’s own. “Maybe I am. So what are you gonna do about it?”

Oh, there were so many things he wanted to do about it. He loved getting to teach the man discipline, loved it when Edward thanked him, breathless, for the lesson.

Guilty, he shook himself from the thought. He couldn’t think about that now. Edward was hurting, and needed him. He had to be there for the younger man.

“I’m not going to do anything about it,” Mustang replied, putting certainty into his voice. “I’m concerned for you, and for your well-being. I know what you want, but like I said last night, I really don’t think you’re as ready for it as you claim to be.”

Ed snorted, his eyes narrowing.

“And you’re the one who gets to decide that, are you?” Ed replied, eyes flashing. And here they went — he hoped this hadn’t been a terrible mistake. 

“Partially, yes,” Roy replied, folding his hands in front of his mouth. “As we discussed last night, consent, by its nature, requires the agreement of _both_ parties — not just the submissive’s agreement, but that of the dominant as well.”

The corner of Ed’s mouth pulled up briefly into a snarl, but the expression was gone almost as quickly as it arrived. 

“Yeah, sure, but that’s bullshit right now. You’re only freakin’ out about this because you think I’m not ready. It’s not ‘cause you had a bad day, or ‘cause you’re tired, or whatever. You’re just stopping because you think you know what’s best for me. Well, y’know what, General,” Edward said, the word coming out with a little laugh, almost like an insult. “You don’t fucking know what’s best for me. _I_ do. So stop pussyfooting around and just get to it.”

Roy stared at him, examining his expression, his posture, everything about him, in hopes of getting some clue as to what the younger man was thinking. Ed’s face was impassive, proud, and the general had no choice but to speak.

“Look, Ed,” Roy said, standing for just long enough to shift over to the couch, to sit barely a foot away from the other man. He wanted to brush a hand through Edward’s hair, sweep one of those soft golden locks behind his ear, but he did not. “You’re going to have to be honest with me, here — and by honest, I don’t just mean not lying to me, I mean that I want you to be open.” Edward flinched, and Roy wished there were another way to do this. “If you want me to trust that you’re telling me the whole truth, then you are going to have to start that process by actually doing so — at least once in god-knows how long.”

If Roy did this and Edward wasn’t quite ready, he might end up doing Edward damage that he could never fix. The thought hurt him like a physical wound. 

Edward kept silent for a moment, considering. But eventually the long, pensive quiet ended, and the man spoke again.

“…What do you want to know?” Edward asked, eying the general with an undeserved suspicion.

Although it shouldn’t have, the question took him by surprise: he had not expected Edward to actually be open to conversation. Although the general’s response was artless, it was genuine. The rock in his throat swelled as he asked:

“Are you alright? I mean, _really_ alright.” A pause: he unlaced and re-laced his fingers as Edward waited, sensing that there was something more to the question. “I simply have trouble believing that less than a week after something so traumatic happened, you’re better.”

The laugh that met the statement was even more surprising than the question had been, and Roy’s brow furrowed.

“Listen, Mustang. If you’re gonna wait until I’m not fucked up in the head to do this shit, then you’re gonna be waiting an awful long time,” said Edward, a golden flash in his eyes.

The general’s body went suddenly stiff, betraying the sick feeling in his stomach: of _course_ Ed wasn’t ready, he shouldn’t have even brought it up, his desire had compromised his good judgment — 

“But that shit doesn’t matter,” Edward continued, interrupting the downward slide of Roy’s thoughts. “This isn’t something I do when I’m better, when I’m perfectly happy and sane or whatever. This is something I do to help me _get_ better.”

Roy drew in a breath, eyes widening as he took those words in, as he began to understand what they meant.

“Edward,” Roy breathed, honored by the enormity of the confession. He paused, unable for the moment to collect himself. “I — thank you for telling me this.”

It made sense, really. If Ed’s experiences had made him feel ashamed of his desires, of his body’s needs, his first instinct would be to make the desires go away. Clearly, though, he hadn’t been able to. 

So, then, the only solution would be to reclaim that space in his life as his own: to remind himself why he did it in the first place, to remember how his power grew as he gave it away, how their play was not an exchange of shame but of love and respect and mutual desire.

As these thoughts passed through Roy’s mind, Ed’s eyes left his own, flickering to the ground as his embarrassment caught up with him.

“Yeah, whatever,” Ed mumbled in response. The silent follow-up was evident in every tense line of the younger man’s body — _so are you gonna do something about it or what?_

Roy’s body certainly made its vote clear. He wanted to bend Edward over the general’s knee, to spank the man until that rosy, heated warmth spread from his ass cheeks down his legs, wanted to tie him up and leave him there until he begged for Roy’s touch, wanted to spread him out and finger-fuck him until he cried.

He had never before made Edward cry. He considered that a challenge he was very much prepared to meet someday, but he could be patient.

Maybe — maybe they _could_ do this, and do it without ruining Ed’s already damaged psyche. Maybe Edward was right. Maybe it would actually help _._

Not one to wallow in indecision for long, Roy made his decision.

“Alright,” the general finally replied, and the sudden arousal that followed his agreement was a lightning shock through his body. Edward’s eyes lit up, round in the force of his surprise.

“What, really?” Edward asked, as if he hadn’t expected all of his arguing to actually make any kind of difference. “But you were just sayin’…”

“Am I not allowed to change my mind?” Roy interrupted, letting his voice drop low, hinting at what was to come. His pulse throbbed through his body, immediate and intense. “You have been… very persuasive,” he purred, and stretched out a hand to run a thumb over Edward’s knee. Ed shuddered, unprepared for such contact, but did not draw away. Before the blonde could speak again, Roy continued, drawing his hand away. “But before we get to that, we’re going to need to negotiate.”

Edward’s lips parted — just barely, tantalizingly; the man probably didn’t even notice — and he nodded. The two of them had never been particularly good at negotiating. In the beginning, Edward hadn’t known at all what he wanted, and their “negotiation” consisted exclusively of an implicit understanding that he would stop if Edward ever told him to. 

Given the circumstances, though, he knew that actual, verbal communication was going to be crucial if he wanted any chance at all of not fucking this up.

“Yeah,” Edward said, though he added nothing more. Roy couldn’t say he was surprised: admitting what he wanted, _asking_ for it, could be very difficult for the younger man, sometimes. Genuine communication could be a challenge for them, sometimes, but Roy was more than up to the task of leading and guiding his lover through those fears.

“So, what do you want out of tonight?” the general asked; Edward licked his lips, which seemed to have gone dry. The sight was most endearing. Seeing the younger man looking embarrassed before a scene was one of Roy’s most favorite things in the world. He loved knowing that Ed trusted him with this.

“I just want,” the blonde replied, hesitantly, as if not sure whether or not saying it was a good idea, “for you to push me out of my head.”

Mustang nodded, his cock twitching between his legs.

“I guessed as much. But, specifically. Is there anything you want in particular? Anything you’re not okay with?”

Ed’s breathing quickened, his cheeks going pink, but he appeared to consider the question deeply. 

“Well… It would be cool if you didn’t take my clothes off,” he mumbled. This didn’t surprise Roy at all. After the way Edward had been behaving for the past several days, he was frankly surprised that the younger man was planning to allow physical contact at all. Edward bit his lip, thinking for another long moment, then said, “Nah, you can take my shirt off. But…”

He didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence for Roy to understand. None of the rest of it could come off. 

His thoughts drifted to the cut between Edward’s legs. Was that the reason for the rule? Or was it something else?

“Alright,” Roy replied, smoothly, acceptance the only reaction he allowed himself. As a dominant, he would never betray surprise — or, god forbid, disappointment — when his partner expressed their hard limits, even if they were out of the ordinary. The very last thing he wanted to do was to make Edward feel less than immaculately desirable, and _disappointment_ translated so effortlessly into _judgment_. 

He didn’t mind too much, though. Keeping Ed mostly clothed had its own distinct appeal.

“So, may I tie you up?”

Roy actually heard the breath that Edward took in then, as the younger man’s chest began to rise and fall rapidly.

“Yes,” Ed replied, though the word cracked. Roy smirked, that surge of power swelling up in him: Edward sent him a look that was wrecked with desire, his hand clenching in the cloth of the couch beside him.

“How are you feeling about pain?”

“Yes, please,” he said, breathless. It was all Roy could do not to close the distance between them right away, put his hand around the muscular grace that was Edward’s neck. “I was thinking… could we try wax?” he asked, looking so virginal and embarrassed at the question that Roy had to keep from kissing him.

“Of course,” the older man growled, eyes wandering over every inch of the other man’s body. After a moment, another thought occurred to him: as much as he wanted to just get this over with, he couldn’t. Not yet.

“You have, for the past several days, been avoiding any kind of physical contact. I assume you have changed your mind, now, or you wouldn’t have asked for this. But how much may I touch you?”

“Um,” said Edward, squirming in his seat. His reluctance to answer this question came clear in every motion he made: perhaps the general was going to have to be more specific.

“Alright, I’m going to present you with some options. All you have to do is nod, or shake your head.” Hopefully that would be easier for the younger man to deal with. “Touching skin.” After a brief pause, Edward nodded, his nervous swallow eminently visible. “Touching genitals through clothing.” Despite the clinical way he said it, the words made Ed’s eyes fall shut. He nodded again, a shaky motion. “Touching under clothing.” 

It was important to know whether Edward’s aversion to having his clothing removed was simply a desire not to be seen, or not to be touched. Perhaps it was both.

There was a brief pause, a hesitation there: after a moment, Ed shook his head in the negative. Roy gave a single, short nod of acknowledgment, then continued.

“If I asked you to get on your knees and suck my dick, how would you feel about that?”

A warm shiver ran through him, making his cock twitch and his body hum with need. _Yes,_ he wanted that, especially with the way Edward was going to look tied up tonight…

“I think… I could do that,” the blonde said, the nervousness evident in the rosy dusting of his cheeks belied by the telltale tent at the meeting of his thighs. “But I reserve the right to tell you to stop if I’m not… you know.”

“Always,” Roy replied, warmly. “On that note, how do you want to let me know if you do want it to stop?” Historically in their relationship, he had invited Edward to escape his bonds through alchemy if he wanted to stop. This option was not traditional, but it seemed to make Edward feel like escape would be a _victory_ rather than a failure, which worked well for them. Still, he didn’t want to automatically fall back on old habits without questioning them, not right now. “Chalk —” for a transmutation circle “— or safe-words?”

“Uh, words, if that’s cool,” Edward replied, and Roy wondered if there was a reason for the change — if there was something happening in Edward’s head that he should understand. But before he could ask or come to any kind of conclusion, the younger man shifted, making a face, then groaned: “Oh my _god_ , how long is this gonna take? I’m gonna shrivel up and die before you do anything —”

A genuine whine cut off the words, as Roy’s hand caressed the heat of Edward’s erection.

“That’s enough, for now,” he said, running a thumb up the length of it: Edward’s body loosened, relaxed, as his lips fell open and a guttural noise broke into the open air. A swell of manic excitement overtook Roy then, at seeing his lover like that, and he couldn’t resist digging his thumb into the hard flesh, teeth bared in a dangerous smile. The whimper that followed was sweet as absolution.

Roy’s breathing evened out, became powerful and purposeful, and he sat up straight as a monument. It took him mere moments to gather himself up, to put on the aspects of his dominance.

“You like that?” the general purred, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the cloth, protecting skin so recently abused. Edward’s eyes fell shut, and his neck lost all tension, falling back on the couch to leave his beautiful neck exposed. He didn’t say anything in response: he didn’t have to. His chest rose and fell sharply, heavily, and his knuckles went white where he clenched the cushion. “I thought you might,” Roy replied, bending in to kiss the tempting skin above Ed’s pulsing jugular. 

A faint moan, a squirm: Roy could already feel the younger man’s descent into his own headspace, the delight and power of submission by choice overtaking him.

_God, he must really want it._

Usually, Ed took much longer to submit, and only did so after much fighting and complaining. He liked to make his lover work for it, to earn his capitulation. Roy was normally terribly fond of this approach, loved being asked to prove himself over and over again and meeting the challenge every time — but this, this unquestioning surrender even in the face of everything the younger man must be thinking, was good too. The utter trust Ed showed took his breath away.

He brought his other hand up, let it cup Edward’s cheek: slowly, he tilted the younger man’s head so that it faced him again. Understanding without a need for words, Edward struggled to open his eyes, and looked into the general’s own.

“So beautiful,” Roy said, stroking the back of his hand down Edward’s neck, drawing a true shudder out of the younger man. To his credit, Ed didn’t allow his eyes to flutter shut again. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Edward said, the single word sounding like an effort. He worked his lips as if trying to say something else, but eventually seemed to give up.

“Good,” the general murmured, smiling softly, allowing this one last moment of gentleness before he put all such things away. When he spoke again, his words were hard, harsh, the voice of authority welling up in him. “Now, go upstairs to the spare bedroom.” Edward watched him without acknowledgment, eyes going glassy as he waited for the general to finish. “Undress yourself to your comfort level. Do whatever you need to do to prepare yourself. Then, kneel with your hands clasped behind your back, facing the front wall.” A pause: he looked Edward up and down. The younger man did not miss the hunger in his gaze. “Oh, and take your hair down,” he added, running a casual hand back through Ed’s bangs. “Do _not_ touch yourself. Do you understand?”

Another shivering breath, and Edward closed his eyes, then nodded.

It wasn’t enough: the general needed more.He clenched Edward’s bangs between his fingers, jerked the younger man’s head back at an uncomfortable angle, held it there.

“What do you say when your general gives you an order, Fullmetal?” he growled, his cock twitching between his legs. 

“Fuck you,” Edward responded: the words were halfhearted, barely more than a whisper, but they struck a spark in the older man. He grinned, fangs bared.

“Wrong answer,” Roy replied, digging his left thumb into Edward’s erection again. Each of the younger man’s breaths had begun to come out as high-pitched whines as he squirmed in his seat, pinned between Roy’s two hands, delivering both pain and pleasure. “Try again.”

“Fuck you, _sir_ ,” Edward replied, with a brief flash of teeth. The general thrilled to hear it: this was the way they were, the way he wanted them, Edward rebellious and challenging, and Roy taking him by struggle and effort from that place to somewhere else, a place where it was alright to trust someone else, to let go of everything for a while.

“Mm,” Roy purred, bending in to sink teeth into the muscle of Ed’s neck. The salt tang of sweat hit his tongue, and the man moaned, thrust his hips up into the general’s cruel grip. The elder man pulled away slightly — not far, just enough that when he spoke, his breath shivered across the deep, red marks. “I’m going to enjoy punishing you for that.”

With that, he let go of Ed’s cock — a sharp whine of disappointment met the loss — then brought his hand up to stroke lightly across the sensitive ridge of the younger man’s ear. The bite, he followed with the caress of his tongue, torturous in its barely-there gentleness.

Once the man had begun to whimper in earnest, he decided the time was right to try again.

“Now,” he began, interrupting with another light trace of his tongue, mapping out the muscles of the man’s neck, then retracing his path precisely. “How do you respond when your general gives you an order?”

Edward writhed in frustration, his knees spreading wider as if in invitation, begging wordlessly.

“Ah, fuck,” he said, as teeth scraped across his earlobe, too soft to do anything but tease him. “Yes. Fuck, yes.” Roy growled his displeasure, making as if to pull away from the younger man entirely. Edward’s eyes shot open as he realized what was happening: his hand shot out to close around the front of Roy’s shirt, blood coloring his cheeks. “I mean — yes, _sir,_ ” he said, the last word forced through bared teeth.

“Mm, good boy,” Roy replied: Edward had always said he hated that particular endearment, but the groan he gave at it now made it obvious that that was a lie. Roy rewarded the younger man with one last stroke to his cock, and Edward’s hips came up off the cushion, pleading, as a helpless noise worked its way from his mouth.

Merciless as ever, Roy abandoned him then, standing up to offer Edward a hand. The younger man stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending, before finally getting himself together enough to take it and follow suit shakily.

They stood there, together, for a long moment, eyes locked on each other. Ed’s eyes had turned almost black, pupils blown out so as almost to swallow the gold, and they watched him without hesitation.

“I’ll see you upstairs,” Roy purred, stroking the younger man’s hair, and Edward, with a nod and a hint of a smile, replied:

“Yes, sir.” 

*

Edward bounded up the stairs, his heart racing from more than just the speed of his movement. Each motion jarred the erection that strained between his legs, an exquisite torture. 

Even as he passed out of sight and into the hallway, he felt Roy’s eyes on his back like an electric current. He didn’t stop to array his thoughts until he had crossed the entire length of the hall into the rarely-used spare bedroom and tugged the door shut behind him.

A spike of anxiety in his chest stopped him, and he paused there, in the middle of the room, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. 

Oh, god. This was finally going to happen. It was really, _actually_ going to happen.

He looked around the spare room, mildly surprised to see that it had stayed the same when everything else had changed so much. Like most of Roy’s house, it was sparsely decorated in shades of warm brown and creamy white, all the furniture made of mahogany or an excellent impostor. The large four-poster canopy bed that dominated the center of the room had been the setting for a number of good memories, as had the pair of heavy metal rings set into the front wall. A large bookshelf to the left side of the room was their only concession to normalcy.

The curtains in this house rarely stayed open these days, but even if they had, the large set of burgundy ones at the back of this room would have stayed off-limits. The collection of toys and ropes hung in rows from the front wall was the sort of thing that might distress the neighbors, after all. 

Ed swallowed grit and parchment as he ran his eyes over them, remembering the touch of each on his skin. Four different canes, of varying widths; a riding crop; a graphite stick, viciously thin; three floggers; a variety of gags; and various other implements that he had never actually had the opportunity to learn the names of. He wondered which of these the General was going to use that night, if any.

The brief exchange downstairs had started him on the descent into subspace, but the quick run upstairs had broken him out of it.

Now, alone, with his pulse pounding heavy through his throat, he wondered if this had been a good idea at all. If he was ready for this, he probably wouldn’t be so nervous, would he? 

All the same, the thought of stopping sat wrong in his stomach. He would just go on being frustrated, snappish, go on _wondering.._. Besides, Roy was waiting for him. He shouldn’t be scared: Roy wasn’t a danger. Roy was _safe._

He could handle it (Could he? His skin had crawled when Roy had moved to put a hand on him through the bars of that cell); so many worse things had happened to him than being touched by the man he loved (his revulsion at those men’s touch had been a physical thing, not so easy to scrub away) and he couldn’t be held down by echoes and memories anymore, not when he wanted this so much, not when he could feel himself going madder with every day he spent deprived.

Hands came together at his throat: he unclasped each button in moments, flesh and metal hands working together in seamless, practiced perfection. He tossed his shirt to the side to let it crumple on the floor — the General liked it when he folded his clothes neatly. The man would likely be unhappy with him for it, might punish him: his stomach made a lurching kind of flip at the thought, and it occurred to him that there was no point anymore in trying to distinguish nervousness from anticipation.

He knelt at the front of the room, facing the blank wall below two metal rings. Running his hand through his hair snapped off the tie that held it up, and it swept down around his shoulders, cascading onto his back. He shook his head to spread it properly, then sat on his heels and clasped his hands behind his back. 

Now, all that was left was to find that place again, to forget everything external in favor of focusing on his own breathing, on the heat throbbing between his legs and the need crackling across his skin. He closed his eyes, pulled breath after breath into his trembling body.

The room was cold, and that was all.

At any moment, the General would be here. Ed licked his lips, finding them surprisingly rough under his dry tongue. Deep breath; in, then out. Another. A few of these brought the light, shimmery tingle back to his muscles, the skin of his arms, familiar and soothing. This, as always, the beginning of his descent; and as it claimed him, the world around him receded, his nerves calmed, heart slowed. This was good, he reminded himself; he could let himself relax here, because the general would take care of him. The man’s grasp of what Ed needed was immediate, instinctive: he knew it better than Ed did himself. He would take care of everything.

There was no knock on the door before the man entered. Edward, hit suddenly by the sheer submissiveness of his posture, let his head droop forward on a slow exhale, did not open his eyes. Footsteps, coming towards him, the dull tap of boots on carpet. He knew that the man was wearing his full uniform, without even having to look; hearing the rustling of the fabric as the man came to a stop next to him was enough.

“Good boy,” came Roy’s voice, purred and growled and exquisitely possessive. A hand raked back through Ed’s hair, scraping across his scalp before closing down on the golden strands, jerking his head back — he gave a soft moan as pleasure spiked from his scalp down his spine. “Such a good boy. You don’t even know how much I’ve missed you,” the general said, the delight in his voice nothing less than a promise. Edward’s breath rasped in his throat, air forced to bend along the sharp angle his neck made. “You give yourself over to me so prettily.” A hand caressed up his throat, closed gently around it, began to squeeze — 

And that was it, he was lost — floating, as if underwater. Each sound echoed, as if from a distance, and the lack of oxygen only added to the sweet, mindless bliss. He opened his eyes to look at his lover, found the man staring at him greedily, the sight a shock of arousal to his already prominent desire. His vision began to swim, figures and backgrounds wavering into one blurred mass, and still he did not struggle; the general would never hurt him more than he could handle.

Finally, the pressure around his neck released. Edward sucked in a violent breath, eyes watering, then coughed up the air he had collected. Another lungful, just as vicious as the first, came after. Sputtering, his breathing slowly returned to normal, and Roy stroked a hand through his hair, making soothing noises as he did so. Edward, to the embarrassment of his last remaining sense of shame, leaned in to the man’s comforting touch.

“So beautiful,” the general murmured, running his nails lightly over Ed’s scalp in a way that made him groan weakly, the sound shivering over his lips, his skin. “You take it so well, you know.” 

_(whore)_

A surge of panic; but he remembered himself in moments, and pushed the memory down. He could handlethis, he had _asked_ for this. They hadn’t ruined him.

A thumb trailed down his cheek, and Edward found his lips parting in silent invitation. Apparently the other man took it as such, because two fingers invaded his mouth, and Ed took them gratefully, the general’s gaze hot on him. 

Slowly, sensually, he began to suck, to lick, reveled in the swell of satisfaction at the sound of the man’s growl, equally possessive and aroused. Then, just as quickly as they had arrived, the fingers disappeared, leaving him feeling strangely empty. The warmth of Roy’s presence disappeared from his side, and he turned his head to watch the man. This was corrected by a hand on his head, forcing his face back forward again.

“Eyes up front,” the man growled, and Edward, out of respect, waited at least a few seconds before twisting back around to follow the other man’s movements. By that time, the general’s back was turned, and Ed watched him bend to pick up the shirt that the younger had so purposefully left there.

“Fullmetal,” the man said, and Ed shivered at the sound of the word, delivered in such a tone. He would never admit how hot that was. Roy knew. Oh, yes, he knew. “You insist on disobedience, don’t you? You _revel_ in it,” he said. He spun on his heel to lock eyes with Edward, the light in his eyes hard. 

He crossed the floor, shirt in hand, to stand in front of Ed’s kneeling form. He tilted the blonde’s chin up with his fingers, digging into soft flesh. 

Then, an open-palmed strike hit him across the cheek, slamming his face to the side. He gave a heated gasp, followed by a groan, as his body responded to the stinging pain. Another soothing drag of skin on skin, across the red mark of his jaw. “I wonder, though,” the general said, voice deep and purring and knowing, “if you don’t enjoy the punishment more than the crime.” He chuckled at that, teeth flashing, as Edward turned his face forward again.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Ed said, in a moment of rebellious inspiration. “Maybe I do. Or maybe I just hate all of your shitty-ass rules.”

Another slap, another groan: trapped between his legs, his cock twitched, uncomfortably hard.

“You know, if you continue to speak to me like that, I may just have to gag you,” the general said, almost conversationally. “And we know how you love gags,” he said, smile wide and hungry.

He did love them, through a veil of hate. It was a special kind of helplessness, lips stretched wide around an invading ball, unable to even stop drooling all over himself — but he loved the half-starved way Roy looked at him when he did. Luckily, Roy had a thing for making Ed be as loud as possible, so the gag didn’t come out too often.

It wouldn’t tonight, he knew. With a gag in, he couldn’t use his safe-words, and Roy would never compromise his comfort.

“But then you wouldn’t get to hear me scream for you,” Ed replied, spreading his knees in a way that was nothing short of lewd. “And we both know that’s what you’re in it for, don’t we, General? You like to hear me moaning and panting, begging for you to fuck me dry, don’t you?”

Roy’s eyes lowered, and he could see the man’s struggle in the tense line of his shoulders. The man _wanted_ him, and that alone was a small miracle. He was aroused by this, too: that was what made it so amazing. Just a few words from Ed could reduce Roy Mustang to a beautiful wreck of a man.

After a moment, Roy bent over, fingers clenching into Ed’s jaw, and spoke:

“You have a dirty mouth,” he purred, almost admiring, his hot breath working wonders on the shell of Ed’s ear. “But do you really think I’m so easy that I’d lose myself to a little dirty-talk?”

His other hand came down to brush fingertips across Edward’s straining cock: with a groan, he pushed up into the pressure, but it was gone as quickly, and he whimpered at the loss. 

His patience, never his strong suit, was swiftly evaporating, his heart pulsing anticipation through his blood. He wanted — 

_(you get down on your knees for mustang? you suck his dick good?)_ A surge of that nausea, that fear, again; he quieted it the only way he knew how, by burying it under other thoughts

_(good boy, you don’t even know how much I’ve missed you)_ Roy was so good to him. What he thought mattered so much more than what those men said to him, to hurt him 

_(hurt you, like you like it)_

His eyes slid shut.

_(this is something we do_ **for** _each other, edward, not_ **to** _each other)_

And that was so, so important: it wasn’t just _him_ that was fucked up and broken and wrong, it was _both_ of them. Together, maybe they could shape all of their millions of shattered pieces into something that looked like two human beings. If they were lucky.

He swallowed, then spoke again.

“Nah,” he murmured, though the word was hoarse and dry and cracked. A faint, halfhearted grin: “I’m not that lucky. I thought I’d try, though.” Briefly, he considered saying “sir,” but decided against it as quickly: Roy hadn’t yet earned that level of capitulation from him.

He would before the evening was over. Ed was certain of that.

“Mmm,” said Roy, a noise of agreement and amusement. A sudden rush of pain and arousal flushed through Ed as teeth dug into the sensitive flesh of his earlobe. A whine broke from his mouth; yes, this, _this_ was what he needed, exactly and without question. God, he wanted. 

The edge was fast approaching, and if the general kept working him like this, he knew he might just come in his pants without being touched: it had happened before, more than once, and it would happen again. 

Then, the pain was gone with the warmth of Roy’s body. Ed leaned to follow it, his desperation barely even registering.

“Stay,” Mustang said, like he would to a fucking dog, and Edward did exactly that. He heard noises behind him: rustling, snapping, the glorious and familiar sound of rope springing loose from its ties. His body longed for the feel of that rope on his skin, craved it in a way he hadn’t known was possible. The need clawed at him, unforgiving, like hunger. All he needed to do was wait, just a few moments.

More footsteps behind him, and then the sweet slide of hemp across the skin of his back, his neck; he breathed in the fragrance and sighed it out again.

“How are you doing?” the general murmured, stroking one hand through Edward’s hair even as the other continued its teasing dance, dragging rope over sensitized flesh. Ed appreciated the sentiment, that the man was trying to take care of him, but he still groaned in frustration at how goddamn long it was taking.

“I’d be doin’ better if you’d stop fucking pussyfooting around and just get _to_ it,” he said, which earned him a swat on the back with something long and hard and thin — a cane. Even this bit of pain, light though it might have been, made the hardness between his legs throb. 

“Patience has never been your strong suit. Perhaps I should train you in its virtues by withholding,” Mustang said, sharp and dark and threatening. He swallowed a weak noise, like a whine. He couldn’t wait any longer. He tried to say something, to use words like a human, but he found himself stripped of the ability. The Voice always had this effect on him: made him lose his mind, his voice, his sense of time, and eventually, self. “You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

Edward shook his head, his hair fluttering out to the sides. He bent forward, to better offer the hands clasped behind his back to his lover’s caress.

“Such a pretty picture,” the general purred, stroking a thumb across the insides of Ed’s wrists, and although the words combined with the motion sent shivers down the younger man’s spine, not all of them were _bad_ shivers. “You’ll be even prettier all trussed up.” A pause. “I suppose I will leave the lessons for another day, because right now, I want nothing more than to see you bound and helpless, aching for my touch.”

Yes, god — that was exactly what he wanted, wanted it with an intensity that embarrassed him. He whimpered, a wordless plea, the noise turning to a long sigh of relief as a loop of rope encircled his wrists. Another, loop, another — then, the slide and snap of a knot being tied. His breathing began to deepen, even out, as the general’s hand tugged his wrists up his back, to a position of mild discomfort: then, he coiled the rope around the middle of Ed’s chest before returning it to his back again. Another quick motion and it looped around the top of the chest; yet another tied the whole thing to itself, keeping Edward’s hands up near his shoulder-blades, immobile.

Distantly, he notes Mustang’s breathing going steady, regular, as well; he knows that this, the ritual and regularity of this dance, of hands on skin and loops and knots and the willingness to trust each other utterly, affects Roy just as profoundly as it does him. This is a moment they share.

Faster than the slack of his thoughts can process it, the rope turns into a harness, covering his whole body; at the general’s request, he moves, stands, turns, kneels again, admired and examined like an expensive horse. The thought of being owned in this way, of being entirely _possessed,_ makes the hardness between his legs throb — to be looked over, touched and examined and commented on like an animal for sale… God, yes

But he can’t ask for that, not right now. Instead, he focuses on the sharp edge of this moment, on the helplessness and peace that grows as his freedom is taken from him. Rope encircles his ankles, his thighs, his knees, binding him entirely to himself.

When it is finished, Edward is kneeling, fettered, his hands behind his back. His commander makes wordless noises of appreciation as he draws his hands across the rope, checking that it’s all done properly. It is, of course — it always is. The general makes no mistakes.

“So beautiful like this,” Roy breathes, into Edward’s ear; he can’t help the little high-pitched noise he makes at that, or the second, more startled, one he gives as a hand comes around him to caress his erection. The sound is a hiss as much as it is anything, an instinctual reaction as this foreign pleasure blooms through him. He cannot recoil, though he tries — he wants it _so much,_ but the sensation is like blood on his skin, and he doesn’t — he can’t — 

He writhes, pulls against the tense strength of his bonds, but gets nowhere. Roy continues to stroke the hardness beneath his palm, his chin resting on Ed’s shoulder, cheek to cheek, his erection pressing into Ed’s lower back. 

“Looks like you _are_ enjoying this, aren’t you,” he says, as a nail scrapes through cloth across the head of his cock. He digs the nail in hard, until it _hurts_ , and all Ed can offer in return is his increasingly erratic breathing. “Answer me, Fullmetal,” the man growls.

Shame burns through Edward, then, and his cheeks flare — he _shouldn’t_ enjoy it,no, but he _does…_ He doesn’t want to answer, but hearing that one word — not his name, not anymore, but connected to him inextricably — both shocks and compels him. He nods, a compromise. Words cannot squeeze through the tightness of his throat.

“Answer me with _words,_ ” the general says, and the sheer displeasure in his voice is enough to break Ed’s silence.

“ _Yes,_ ” he groans, letting his head fall back onto his general’s shoulder.

“Mm,” he says, voice warm satin in Ed’s ear, “you’ve been away from the military for too long, Fullmetal. You’ve forgotten your place.” His voice is so confident, so utterly authoritative, that Edward can only find himself agreeing, silently. “How do you speak to a man who outranks you?” 

And Edward has never been obedient, no, but he has always been _good_ ; he does not give the answer expected of him, and instead says:

“Yes, _master.”_

Roy groans behind him, and Ed knows it was the right choice. In the heavy rise and fall of the general’s breath, in the absence of words that followed, he hears Roy’s internal conflict. His personal enjoyment of hearing that word come out of Ed’s mouth wars with his desire to train his young lover to do exactly as ordered. 

A hand wanders up the muscles of Edward’s stomach, traces lines below the dent where the rope digs into his skin.

“You little brat,” Mustang practically purrs, half in admiration — he bites down on Edward’s exposed neck, and Ed gives a heavy gasp, thick with need. “You know what you’re doing,” he says when he releases it. His breath across the damp skin draws out shivers from hot flesh. 

The hand comes up further, to his chest, and Edward’s breath catches, the taste of fear strong in his mouth. And then, a thumb traces across the skin there, touches a nipple — it hardens under the touch — 

_(Such a slut, you’d come for anything)_

His nipple had gotten hard when that man had touched it, too, in that alley, that day. He remembers.

And then Ed isn’t _there_ anymore, no longer in the safety of this room, no longer wrapped in the arms of his lover but in those of a grinning stranger as alcohol takes the edge off of his competence but doesn’t dull the primeval terror in him, a fear more powerful than reason, deeper than consciousness — 

_a stranger’s blood on his teeth, his heart beating a hole in his chest_

_his own blood between his legs, dripping down onto concrete, still there on the silver of a knife as the man strokes himself, readies himself_

_(you really do want it)_

_(hurt him, like he likes to be hurt)_

_I’m going to die here_

An animal cry rips its way from his throat, and these bonds are suddenly too _much,_ too constraining, and he begins to struggle in earnest but he can’t _free_ himself, he’s trapped, oh _god_ , and this time he’s not going to get away — he’s going to die and all that will be left of him is shame and regret — 

A soft question from behind him: he gasps, and the smell of hemp rope reminds him where he is, whose hands are on his skin. _This is Roy, you’re safe_ , he tells himself fiercely, but no amount of reassurance calms the frantic rush of blood through his ears. This instinct is stronger than he is, or maybe he was just weaker than he thought. _Fuck, don’t **touch** me _ lives beside _you’re not allowed to say yes and then change your mind, what kind of an asshole move is that?_

He can’t quell the panic, can’t free himself — his breath is harsh and ragged, and he jerks away from soothing hands on him. Suddenly, for no reason at all, he remembers something Roy said, a long time ago:

_(I have to be able to trust you to tell me when to stop.)_

And that is enough: from some deep reserve within him, he manages to summon the presence of mind to open his mouth and let a single word out.

“Red,” he says. If he were more sane, if he were a normal person, if he were _stronger_ he wouldn’t have hadto — _are you really that weak, Elric? — what the hell are you thinking, you could take more, like the good little whore you are —_ but he’s shaking against Roy’s chest and Roy has gone stiff behind him and Ed feels like the biggest failure in the world, but suddenly there are no more ropes around his wrists, and there are words being whispered in his ear that he can’t hear, doesn’t understand, until all at once he does.

“…thank you, thank you. I’m so proud of you, Edward,” the voice behind him murmurs, and that might be the sensation of Roy untying ropes on his back but it’s not fast enough: somehow unbinding Ed’s hands only makes him feel the need to escape even more keenly, as if by having the abilityto fight back he is also compelledto do so. He claws at the knots on his stomach, all thoughts of alchemy forgotten in the thick mass of confusion that has conquered him. His attempts to free himself are useless — he can’t get them _off,_ and his body thrashes against them as his mind reels, and Roy’s hushed words of “Calm down, Edward, it’s alright, you’re fine, I’m here,” cannot penetrate this maze.

Then, suddenly, he hears the crackling electricity of a transmutation, and the ropes around his chest, his legs fall away. All at once, Edward’s breathing becomes easier; the world rights itself, rebuilds itself around him, and as strong arms pull him up out of the water he finds he is no longer drowning. It takes him longer than it should have to realize that he’s actually being carried, that Roy’s arms are strong below him, and the frenzied energy has drained from him, leaving his muscles limp on his bones, so he can’t really bring himself to care.

Then, a warm softness envelops him as Roy slips him into the bed, under the covers, and the tight embrace does not disappear.

“Shh,” Edward hears, and that must be his lover’s fingers carding through his hair. He opens his eyes to find Roy lying with him, mere inches in front of him. Just as quickly, his eyes slide shut again: he can’t yet bear the intimacy of it. “It’s alright. You’re alright. Thank you, Edward. You’re amazing. I’m so proud of you,” he hears, again. He doesn’t know what on earth he could possibly have done to make the other man _proud,_ but can’t bring himself to ask just yet.

It only took a few minutes for the thunderous panic of Edward’s heart to start subsiding, for his breathing to return to normal. When he began to feel half-sane, or at least not in immediate danger of mental breakdown, he braced himself against his lover’s worry and risked opening his eyes again. 

To his surprise, it was not worry he saw on his lover’s face at all, but a soft smile. His stomach flipped uncomfortably. That had not been what he was expecting.

He pried his parched mouth open to say:

“What the hell, Mustang.” His eyes sagged until they were almost shut again. “What’re you smiling at me like that for?”

“Because,” Roy replied, “you’re amazing.”

Edward actually flinched to hear that. He hoped the man didn’t notice.

“You’re a fuckin’ head case,” Edward mumbled, but he nevertheless did not try to escape the other man’s embrace. “I flip out on you in the middle of a scene, make you transmute me out of your rope, and your response isn’t that I’m crazy as shit — it’s to fucking thank me?” Sometimes, he really didn’t understand his lover at all.

“I wasn’t thanking you for hitting your limits, Edward. I was thanking you for telling me when you did.” Another stroke of hand through his hair; it shouldn’t have felt as amazing as it did. “Yes, you’re amazing. I’m proud of you for trying to overcome your problems, and I’m proud of you for telling me when you needed me to stop. I know that admitting weakness has never been easy for you,” he added, and wasn’t _that_ just the fucking truth. “You’ve never used your safe word, before. So I am proud of you. And happy,” he said, like he had just been given a _gift._ Like Ed hadn’t just ruined their evening, like there weren’t ghostly voices echoing all around in the younger man’s head, like Ed wasn’t crazy as shit.

“Still don’t get it,” he mumbled. “’S weird for you to be happy after bullshit like that.”

“I’m happy because you just proved that my trust in you is valid. I’m happy because you proved you trust me enough to ask for help.” When the general spoke again, his voice was low, sultry. “I’m happy because it means that I can take you even further, next time. Up until today, I haven’t been sure that you would use your safe-word if I pushed you past what you were comfortable with. Now that I am sure you will, I can start going all-out,” he said, and Ed opened his eyes to find a predator where his lover had once been, all sharp smiles and hungry stares.

It was a testament to how warm, how comfortable Edward felt in that moment, that despite the clamoring voices, despite the fear that had so recently conquered him, he began to get _un_ comfortable in a very particular way. A very particular way that Roy was going to notice any second.

“You bastard,” Edward said, forcing himself not to pull away as his growing erection began to press into the hard bone of Roy’s hip. “You mean you’ve been going easy on me all this time?” 

“In a word, yes,” Roy replied.

Edward had a very good memory, especially for the things they had done together. All of _that_ had been going easy on him? He groaned; this train of thought wasn’t helping his growing erection.

Roy, the canny bastard that he was, didn’t miss it: he ground his hips into the hardness, just once, like a test. A whine came, soft, from the back of Ed’s throat.

“You’re totally fucking full of it,” Edward declared, somewhat breathlessly. But he really was curious, and so he said: “What the fuck else’ve you got up your sleeve?” If his heart was beating faster again, it was for completely different reasons than it had been mere minutes ago.

The general focused a serious look on him; they locked gazes for a moment, and Ed could see the ticking clockwork of his lover’s thoughts behind dark eyes.

“Before we continue this conversation,” Roy asked, all of his earlier playfulness gone, “— which I am perfectly willing to do, just to be clear — I’m going to need you to tell me that you’re alright.”

Ed considered this. Was he alright? He wasn’t really sure. Under the blankets and in Roy’s gentle embrace, his earlier terror seemed very far away, like it had happened to someone else. It belonged in a different world than this one.

“I’m fine,” Edward said after a moment, his tone not nearly as idle or casual as he had perhaps intended. A raised eyebrow from the man in front of him; Ed responded by pressing his erection harder against the general’s body. “Really,” he added, as if he thought that was convincing. “I don’t want to think about what happened back there, right now, or talk about it or anything.” It was still too soon for that; talking about his panic might bring it back, and that was the very last thing that he wanted. “We will later, if you want. Sometime when I don’t have a massive boner,” he added, in case the general hadn’t gotten the point.

Roy took in a breath, skated his thumb down Edward’s side: Edward caught a breath, that light contact much too arousing. Without stopping to think about it, Ed grabbed his lover’s hand and placed it at his crotch, then began unbuttoning his pants.

The general, being a clever man, took the cue after only a few moments of hesitation: he finished opening Ed’s clothing and drew out his cock, hard and hot.

The sound Edward made as that hand closed around him was probably closer to a mewl than anything else, but he was past caring; he tipped his head back, exposing his throat, allowing his eyes to close as deft fingers stroked him, fueling the burn low in him. 

“Mm, as much as I’m enjoying this,” Edward said, pleasure building low in his stomach, “Weren’t you going to tell me what else you’re going to do to me, now that you can go all out?” he asked, strangely unembarrassed by the sultry tone.

“Ah, yes. How remiss of me, to have forgotten,” Roy replied, his playfulness back; this was not the General, not the man Ed called Sir or Master — just Roy, and Roy in top seductive form. “I know that you are very good at taking pain,” he said, and the pride Ed felt at those words burnished his arousal as much as anything he had heard that evening. “But there are other things I would love to do to you, too. A collection of fantasies,” Roy purred, just as he brushed a thumb over the tip of Ed’s cock; the blonde shivered. He still couldn’t get over the fact that Roy Mustang fantasized about _him;_ even after all this time together, the thought seemed absurd.

“Yeah?” Edward said, the invitation coming out on an open-mouthed sigh.

“Yes. One area I am _very_ interested in that we have yet to venture into is roleplay.” Roleplay? Roy continued before he had a chance to really think about it. “I love the thought of you as my virgin sex slave — collared, chained, always available for my use and enjoyment.” The noise that escaped Ed’s mouth then was actually embarrassing: his cheeks flared, and Roy smirked. “Or you could be my student, the subject of my illicit desires, and learn of your carnal nature under my hand.” He whined, thrusting his hips into the General’s hand, and the smirk that earned him made him shudder. “Or I could be a doctor, and give you the most exciting medical examination of your life.” The general’s hand began to speed up, and Edward’s whines started coming in earnest as he began to gently thrust into every motion. _Yes,_ yes, please, he wanted all of that. “I want to tie you up and leave you there with a vibrator shoved up inside you, make you come more than you think should be possible. I want to fuck you while you call me ‘daddy,’” he purred, giving Ed’s cock a hard squeeze, and _fuck,_ that should not be nearly as hot as it was. 

“Vetoing the last one,” Ed mumbled, distantly, but from the way the other man laughed, he had a feeling that the general wasn’t going to give up on it so easily. He really couldn’t focus on arguing at the moment, though or on anything except for that hand, pleasuring him and possessing him both at once. Harsh gasps wracked his body as he drew closer and closer to the edge.

“I want to take you dry, like an animal,” he purred. “I want to sneak into your bedroom while you’re asleep and fuck you without waking you up.”

For some reason, this last one earned a wanton moan from Edward; or maybe it was just a combination of all of these ideas that had him so hard and needy. Pressure built in his loins, tightening, and he was so _close_ , so damn close. All he needed was just a little bit more.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Roy growled, and suddenly Edward’s vision went white, his body contracting, pulsing, as he came hard into Roy’s hand — thrusting once, then again, and again, until he had spent all he had to give.

Gently, slowly, Roy milked the last of his seed from him, and brought him back down to earth again.

“Yes, that’s it,” he murmured, swiping come off of the tip of the younger man’s cock. That touch on his oversensitive head made him shudder. “Just like that. Good boy,” he said, and damn if Edward wasn’t strangely happy to hear those words from the general’s mouth — because even though they could be demeaning, embarrassing beyond reason if anyone else heard, Roy said them like he meant them.

When he was done, his breathing finally returned to normal, Roy tugged him close, enveloping him in his arms. The man placed a kiss on Ed’s forehead, and didn’t seem to mind the face Ed made in return. 

_Wait,_ he thought, examining the crevices of his lover’s soft smile, _he hasn’t gotten off. Shouldn’t I…?_ The very image sent him careening too close to the edge of his earlier sickness… So, he didn’t say a word about it.

After a few minutes, comfortable silence wrapping them together, Roy finally spoke.

“You got my uniform jacket all dirty,” he said, purring, amused. “I’m considering asking you to lick it off.” From the tone, Edward couldn’t be sure whether the man was serious or not, but he did know that he didn’t really feel like it, so he said:

“Eh, lick it off yourself,” he said, burying his face in his lover’s shoulder. This earned him a laugh.

“When we’re not both so comfortable, I would be happy to lick your come off of wherever you like,” he said, suggestively. Ed groaned and wished he could summon up the energy to smack the man.

“Goddammit, ruin the moment, why don’t you,” he replied; Roy laughed and hugged Ed closer, which only resulted in Edward’s come plastering said jacket to the skin of his chest. “Fuck, that’s disgusting,” he said, pulling away. The tackiness of the drying material ensured that they made a horrible ripping sound as they pulled apart, and it left a sticky residue of nastiness across his chest. He gave his lover a halfhearted glare. “Take the jacket fucking off, or I’m leaving. I’ll transmute it out later.”

“You know you only have to ask to get me to disrobe for you, Edward. No need to resort to threats.” Ed rolled his eyes, and this time did feel up to punching the man in the shoulder; Roy laughed and put up his hands in mock-surrender before removing the offending garment and tossing it to the side, to land in an undignified heap on the floor. Then, he pulled Ed into his embrace again.

“Better?” the older man asked, softly, and Edward didn’t dare to look up to see the expression on the other man’s face. Instead, he buried his face in the pillow just next to Mustang’s head, and threw an arm out to drape over his lover, so casually he might be able to pass it off as an accident.

“’Sokay,” he mumbled, and if he wasn’t already going to hell, he’d go for that lie alone. As if this position wasn’t the best thing in the world — as if this wasn’t the only place he had felt safe and cherished and wanted in forever.

But Roy knew him by now, and Ed knew by his laugh that he wasn’t fooled by the feigned indifference.

“Good,” he replied, and Edward, despite his misgivings, despite everything, let himself smile.

*

It was almost eleven o’clock by the time Weimar looked up from his work to realize that he was still alone. 

He hadn’t been that -- _alone_ \-- in so long, but he hadn’t forgotten its cruelty. His empty stomach clawed at him. Where was she? He had the power of god over the man whose life he splayed out in sheaves of white and ink on a cedarwood desk but he couldn’t keep his own wife at home when he needed her. 

But where even could she be? His angel, his prophetess, there to soothe his sweats with cool cloths and kind words when the desert heat overcame him again -- she had never abandoned him, she loved him, with all the ferocity her heart could muster. And he her, he added. 

The cuckoo burst through the door on the clock to caw out the time. The sound was scraping and harsh, and he hated it.

Had it been their fight in the garden? Was that really what had precipitated her disappearance? He gritted his teeth and smoothed his hand over his beard. She had never held something against him for so long, but then, she had never slapped him, either. 

She had _slapped_ him — a great rage, predicated on his disbelief, began to build up in him. He stood violently from his chair, stalking straight-legged from one end of his office to the other, from the kingly portraits hung on one wall to the bookshelf opposite, and repeated the path, purposeless but impatient.

Could it really have been about the Fullmetal boy? He shook his head: it didn’t add up. How could she possibly care enough to leave, to _hit_ him over someone she had never even met? 

That couldn’t be it. She had always been tenderhearted but even she wasn’t that much of a fool. 

_Don’t you think I know that you love men?_ He could hear her say it again in his mind, plain as day, and this was not the first time the sounds had caused him distress. 

_No, you have it wrong._ His love for Jonah her brother had been entirely platonic. Of course she didn’t understand — she had never been on a battlefield, had never known the kind of camaraderie that grows between those who have stared death in the eye together. Anything more than that, she must have imagined. He wanted to explain it to her, that it wasn’t _like_ that. He might have been a less than enthusiastic partner in their couplings, but he was a busy man, with many concerns. He didn’t always have the spare resources required to pay attention to such needs of his body. 

_Or maybe she’s right_ , another voice said: his own. _Maybe you’re just a good-for-nothing faggot, like Mustang_ – he growled, stopping to glare at the books on the shelf in front of him. No, he was nothing like that. Even if, perhaps, once… Well, he had overcome any problems he might have had years ago, while Mustang and his fucktoy reveled in their debauchery, in breaking the natural order. 

The minutes ticked by, and he became increasingly certain that his wife was not coming home. Not that night, perhaps not ever. 

Not _ever_ — he would be alone forever now, because that fucking woman — 

And then his calm cracked, giving no warning: _how dare she_ , he thought, spinning to reach for something, anything physical, something he could grip and hate and touch. A book, leather-bound, between his fingers. He jerked it from the shelf, compelled by this sudden madness — a goddamned philosophy book. He remembered her buying them, remembered the reverent way she had smoothed her hands along the cover, and the realization that _his eyes were prickling_ destroyed the last shackles of his restraint.

Hurling the book towards the ground, watching it hit the floor with a heavy, ominous crack, earned him a sweet note of elation. He bared his teeth: yes, that was _good,_ somehow satisfying, like a victory — 

But it wasn’t enough. The feeling winked out as quickly as it had flared up.

Perhaps he had to repeat it.

He wanted to, craved the crash and destruction, wanted to see every single goddamn ornament in this room on the floor

and he would, if he let himself. He would turn this place to a ruin, with all he had worked so hard to achieve smoking inside. 

He stomped to a small cabinet on the side of the room, threw the doors open; a bottle of whiskey occupied one of the top shelves, accompanied by a small glass. He ignored the glass in favor of pulling the whiskey from its place, jerking the cork out and putting the rim of the bottle to his lips. 

The liquid burned his throat as he swallowed, but the fire was a familiar one. One gulp -- two -- how many, now? It didn’t matter.

He almost let the bottle drop when he was done, almost let it shatter on the ground just to hear it break. Undirected fury was a gale force in his chest, roaring through the hollows of his bones, but some last reserve of his strength stopped him. _Not yet,_ it said. _Wait._

How had she, who he had thought had known him best, misjudged him so badly? How could she think of him as something so base?

More importantly, how could he win her back?

He couldn’t live without her: the sharp, rumbling emptiness of his stomach was proof enough of that. 

But where had she gone? 

And what would she do, without him? She had no trade to ply, her family was dead or infirm, and even the fortune bequeathed to her was safe in their shared account, which he doubted she even knew how to access. Surely she wasn’t leaving permanently -- surely this was a simple tiff, a lover’s spat, and she would be back on her own any minute now.

With every passing moment, the whiskey worked itself further into his bones, his blood, making the train of his logic increasingly convoluted. 

He wasn’t what she said, and he could prove it to her. He loved her: he could give her a family, the life she deserved. Perhaps if he offered her a child — not tomorrow, next year, but _now —_ maybe he could -- 

The clock drew nearer to midnight, and if he had to hear that goddamn cuckoo again, he was going to smash it --

The emptiness of this house weighed on him, suffocated him like thick sand-colored dust — he had choked his way through it, then, and he would never be free of it.

He had to go. He had to find her. He had to be free of at rotten stench, the corpses that lined the byways of his life, the sweet-rancid smell of infection as it claimed a body — _Jonah’s_ body — from the inside out. He could prove it to her. Another swig of whiskey, for bravery or luck, and he was out of the office, into the marbled entry hall, barely a pause to put on his shoes -- his jacket hung, forgotten, on the coat rack -- and then out into the night air. 

It was not difficult to find a cab, not in a city like this: the walk from his door to the nearest major street was unsteady, and the taxi seat a profound relief.

He could prove it to her: he was just as much of a man as any other, could please her like a man should. He barely even registered his order to the cab driver, nor their arrival — too lost in his own thoughts, in hot memories and dusty -- or his exit, though he managed to pay the driver for his time and his silence. 

And then he stood, alone, in front of the edifice: a great stone building, windows casting warm light through red curtains onto the ground outside, and he could not have said why he broke out in a cold sweat, but he shivered, salt-wet trickling down to sting his cracked lips. The evening was cold. 

He opened the door on his own, and stepped through into the plush lounge that awaited him there.

A woman, abundant, in a red dress with a red-flowered hat perched atop her curls, noted his entry, clasping a red cigarette holder delicately between her teeth. He almost approached her, but paused, uncertain: but she made that move before he could, curling up a corner of her painted lips at him, hips swaying as she crossed the floor. 

As she approached, he could see that the makeup was deceiving: she had a pointed nose below thin eyes, like a fox, and she was past her prime. 

“Hello, sir. What can we do for you today?” she asked, and the quiver of his gaze over to the sweeping staircase to their left doubtless gave him away. When he didn’t answer, she tittered behind a modest hand and said: 

“A shy one. That’s quite alright, quite alright. I’ll take care of you, never you fear: sit down, the chairs are comfortable. What kind of services were you interested in enjoying?” 

* 

“--mean it, Weimar’s here, he just walked in. I said I’d call if I got word --" 

“--paying customer?” 

“Seems like it; he’s been drinking, his eyes are --” 

“-- get him in with Julie. I know your girls aren’t trained but --” 

“She’ll do her best.” 

The red woman hung up the telephone, took a long drag of her cigarette, and glided back out to the receiving room, a gracious smile on her face. 

“Come right this way, my dear,” she said, guiding the general expertly by the elbow. “We’ll have you in with Julie; she’s young, but she’s one of our best. Will two hours be enough for you?”

* 

She was in a green satin nightdress when he entered, one leg bare up to the hip, lounging atop a lushly appointed bed. He swallowed, nerves overcoming him, as he laid eyes upon her for the first time, and he briefly considered fleeing. But the floor was so unstable, and the bed looked so warm and comfortable, and god, how long had it been since he had drunk? He didn’t remember _this._

“Hello, Mr. M,” she said, for that was the name he had given to the madame. She gave him a sultry look, almost hidden behind the curtain of her brunette hair, and he knew women like her were good at what they did. “So, are you the type who prefers to get started right away, or would you like to talk first? Get to know each other a little before we get down and dirty.” 

Weimar’s fingers went to his own waistcoat, and he began to unbutton it, shakily. The woman had a filthy mouth. 

“Call me Mikhael,” he said, his good sense having abandoned him much earlier that evening. “And let’s not waste time,” he said, to which she gave a rich laugh. 

“A man after my own mind,” she said, and he wondered how many other men had heard those same words from her. She swept herself up to the edge of the bed, kneeling there, extended her hand to draw him closer by his lapels. She stilled his hands with two of her own, looking up at him with sparkling green eyes — Meredith’s eyes had sparkled like that, once — and raised herself to kiss him softly on the lips, taking over the duty of unbuttoning the clothing herself.

Determined, he met her lips with his own, her motion with his own, and when her tongue parted his lips he allowed it, disguising his shiver by wrapping his arms around her, smoothing his hands across flawless skin.

She really was a beautiful creature. Any man with a live heart in the cage of his ribs would want her, and so he kissed her back, slid her dress down to bare her shoulders, let her unclasp his buttons easily, one after the other popping free. His shirt came next.

“Is this your first time with a lady of the night?” she asked as she pulled away, her voice low and velvet. 

Weimar nodded, wondering what madness drove him to this: the creamy whiteness of her breasts peeked up at him from below swaths of cloth, and, like any man would, he wanted to touch them. He traced his thumb across the curve of first one, then the other, staring at them, memorizing, willing that shock of arousal into existence.

“I guessed as much,” she said with a hint of amusement as he examined her breasts, such perfect specimens of their kind. “So, let me go over the rules for you,” she said, peeling back his shirt, leaving him bare. The expanse of the room was cold, but the air between them, heated by their bodies, was almost too hot. The woman turned around, still sitting on the red comforter, and when he saw the series of strings -- attached to buttons, not corset holes, he realized in a moment -- he guessed she meant for him to undo them. Sick to his stomach, he began. “You can do whatever you like, within reason, or you can just lie back and let me take care of you. If you go over the two hours, we charge you for a third. More than that, you pay for the night, plus a fee. Protection is mandatory.” At the third button now, Weimar frowned: protection from what? The button popped free, and he forgot his confusion in the rush of nerves. 

“And,” she added, offering him a sultry smile over her shoulder that he barely noticed, “You can call me whatever you like. Is there anything that suits your fancy? Anyone I can be for you?”

This surprised him, but his mind responded quickly. His wife -- his beautiful wife -- the only woman he had ever -- 

If he closed his eyes halfway, he could see it: brown hair could be dark blonde with just a bit of imagination, and green eyes could be blue if he never looked straight at them. 

“Meredith,” he breathed, nuzzling his face into her neck, breathing in this strange scent and pretending it was familiar. He popped another button loose, and the whole satin sheath came crumpling down around her waist, leaving the curve of her back bare. “Oh, my Meredith.”

“Mm, Mikhael,” she said, twisting back around to face him: her breasts were there in front of him, foreign, and if his pulse began to hammer in his throat, if his mouth went dry, it was understandable. She was, after all, a stranger, and the room was _so_ hot. “Don’t just stand there. Come up on the bed,” she said, and slipped the rest of her dress over her hips, leaving her bare. Were all women this -- curved? He knelt beside her, and the feeling building up in him was anticipation, excitement, not by any means revulsion. 

By god, he was going to fuck this woman. He took her breasts in hand and began to squeeze, tentatively, like one would squeeze a fruit to see if it’s ripe: and her hands went to his waist, the first button of his pants.

“Wait,” he said, the world waving back and forth and _are you really going through with this_ and he wasn’t ready for her yet, his manhood still soft and uninterested. She didn’t protest, just nodded, and asked:

“Would you like to lie back? I can make it good for you,” she said, and at least that took some of the pressure off, he had never been good at performing sexually under pressure, he had never been good at performing at all… He nodded, laid back, head on one of many pillows, and watched as she crawled up him, straddled him, the bare expanse of her feminine mysteries rubbing against his crotch as she undulated, gyrated above him, her generous tits bouncing with every movement. 

He could feel her wetness through the cloth. Something about it made him feel -- dirty, unclean, and that was certainly a shiver of revulsion that passed through him. 

_This is arousing,_ he thought to himself as he watched her, because he knew it was. _She is beautiful, and she is naked, and I can have sex with her whenever I like._

“Meredith,” he said again, to remind himself. She ran fingers through the hair on his chest. Then, louder: “Meredith.” 

“I’m here, love,” she said, and he hated that she had guessed so well; but he let his eyes fall shut, trying to focus on the sensations, the pressure and friction of her body on his. But thoughts swirled like falling cherry blossoms through his mind, and he found focus a task far beyond his capabilities, drowned beyond the thought that this woman was touching him like this, and something about it felt so inexplicably wrong. 

But he could be the man he said he was, could prove himself to her, to _everyone._ He had to show her — meredith and Meredith — that he wasn’t one of _those._

He grabbed her by the hips and flipped them, grinding himself against her, hoping to find that kind of stimulation he needed. 

This time, when she made to unclasp the button of his pants, he did not protest, for surely, surely by _now_... 

And as she pushed his underwear down, it became clear that his cock was infuriatingly, humiliatingly limp. She looked at it for a moment, as if analyzing, and he flushed red down to his chest. He didn’t make a habit of hitting women but he wanted to slap that little smirk off of her face. 

“It’s alright,” she said, taking him in hand and beginning to stroke him. He pulled in harsh air. “It happens to lots of men, especially after they’ve had a few drinks. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she said, and the fact that her voice was so cool and reasonable only made the bitterness of her amusement sting harder. 

Another stroke, then another; her delicate hand slid up and down his shaft, and this, at least, he was used to. He gritted his teeth, trying not to jerk away, and closed his eyes. Thus isolated, he took sharp, deep breaths, trying to calm the tide of his frustration. 

A minute or so of this, and he felt a sharp tingle, low in his belly: blood rushed to his cock, and cool relief hit him as he felt it begin to swell. God, yes. He could do this. This was nothing. 

She took this as encouragement, and flipped their positions again, leaving herself on top: Weimar flashed his eyes open to get his bearings, and saw her mouth positioned above his semi-hard cock, her hand keeping the rest of it steady, and then suddenly she was swallowing him down. 

His reaction was instant, entirely unexpected: he went limp in the whore’s mouth _oh god_ only moments before _don’t **touch** me_ he shoved her off of him and was up off of the bed, feet on the floor, feeling wild and mad, like a man in danger, like there was some ambush planned and a target trained on his head, but he knew there was no-one. Only her, _not your wife,_ naked in her woman’s flesh, looking up at him in confusion. 

“It’s alright,” she said, reaching a hand out as if to comfort him. “Like I said, it happens to a lot of men --”

“It’s _not_ alright,” he snarled: the fury had taken him, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, and as he spun around to face her he threw out an arm to smash the bedside lamp onto the floor. The high, explosive sound, the sight of ceramic shards on the floor, only stoked his fury: the satisfaction it brought fueled a savage urge to do it again. “You,” he said, and jabbed an accusatory finger towards her. “You are a failure as a whore and as a woman. I shouldn’t _have_ this problem here. Why do you think I paid for you?" 

He turned around again, stalked across the room to a small desk on the far side, and with one broad sweep of his arm knocked everything down onto the floor. _She must not have been trying hard enough, this must have been a set up, she must have been planted to make me feel like a fucking failure._

She watched him, never betraying her thoughts on that perfect mask of her face, or perhaps she just didn’t have any thoughts to speak of. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“Calm down,” she said, too coolly for someone sitting naked on her bed. “Let’s just take a deep breath and talk this through.” He didn’t _want_ to talk this through, especially not with her: he wanted to break every single goddamn thing in this room, and he wanted to fuck that woman, and in so doing confirm to himself and to anybody else watching that he was who he said he was. Her voice broke again through his thoughts: “And maybe you should put your dick away while you’re at it,” she said, and he became suddenly aware that he was hanging out of his pants absurdly. His hands moved to hide it as shame, fury broke through him, cold; his feet froze for just this bare moment as his mind tried to work through this sudden white heat, these thoughts of _how dare she disrespect me like that._

She seemed almost surprised as he stormed across the room and laid a backhand blow across her cheek. He was not as strong as he had once been, but she was unprepared, and a predator’s thrill at taking the beast down overtook him as he saw her crumple onto the covers.

“ _YOU_ ,” he roared, every bit of him full and hot and he could not sate this feeling. “ _How DARE you talk to me that way?_ ” He slammed his fist against the bedpost, shaking the canopy and the whole damn floor. “As if my wife leaving weren’t enough, you, a WHORE, have the gall to try talking down to _ME?!_ You had better learn your fucking place --”

And as he raised his hand to deliver another blow, he found it trapped: he turned to meet the sharp, hateful stare of the madame.

“I think you should go now, General Weimar,” she said, icily, as the girl sat up on the bed beside him. “Yes, I know who you are. Do you take me for a fool?” Weimar took in a breath, a distant voice suggesting that you’ve made a terrible mistake. “And if you do not go immediately and leave us in peace, with a check for a million cenz at the front desk, then I swear to god this will be all over the newspapers tomorrow morning. And wouldn’t _that_ be inconvenient.”

She had a black way of speaking, and something about her demeanor assured him that she would follow through on her threat.

And, oh god, as the rage began to evaporate, everything else became clearer in its turn: where he was, what he had done, and this feeling of shame or disgust or humiliation…

“Lucy,” she said, never letting go of her vice grip on his wrist even as she turned to the door. He dragged his gaze there, and saw for the first time that the empty space was crowded with faces -- faces too distant, too blurred to identify, but faces. “Call Mr. Weimar a cab. We wouldn’t want him to do any more damage on the way home,” she spat, and shoved him towards them. Hands on his arms, shoulders, as they led him downstairs -- someone was putting his shirt back on him -- and as the door shut behind him he heard, _Julie, darling, are you alright?_ And that was wrong, because that was Meredith back there, lying on her side, with the blue-blossoming mark on her cheek.

They led him down the stairs, stopped him at the front desk long enough for him to pull out his checkbook, then out to the waiting car in stony silence.

To his credit, he waited until he was home, and the cab long out of sight, before vomiting in the bushes in front of his garden, a tearing, bitter purge. He made it inside, to the sitting room, and stumbled over everything on his way to the couch that his wife had picked out.

He began to drift away as soon as his head touched the cushion, though the world spun and waved around him, and his wife would kill him if he threw up on this carpet, so he didn’t.

_I hope you’re happy, you disgusting creature_

His last thought as he faced the darkness.

*

“Yes, Julie’s fine. She’ll have a whopper of a bruise tomorrow, but she’s fine.”

“Good.” Madame Christmas tapped the end of her pen against the table, thinking, telephone receiver pressed up against her ear. “I’ll make sure she gets a proper thank you, when all this is over.” A pause. “And you’re sure he mentioned his wife leaving him.”

“Uh-huh,” came Madame Rose’s reply. “Why, is that important?”

“Could be,” Christmas responded, noncommittally. She wasn’t in the habit of revealing her hand. A bad habit, that, and one that could get you killed. They exchanged goodbyes, but no more information, and the madame hung the telephone back in its cradle. 

_Meredith Weimar,_ she thought, frowning as she stared at the notes in front of her. _Now, what did you find out?_

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, as always, please let me know! I could use a little bit of love and encouragement from the internet.


	17. ANNOUNCEMENT

I have gotten this question enough in the comments that I thought it was well nigh time for me to make an official addendum to this fic to say:

I have not abandoned it! 

I have been very very ill, and I haven't written much of anything for about a year and a half -- but the good news is, I'm getting better, and I finally feel strong enough and well enough to start sizing this monster up again.

Consequently, I am working on it again for the first time in a VERY long time. There have been actual words written. 

So you guys can be comfortable in the knowledge that I have NOT and would NEVER abandon you, especially without word. If I ever did decide to abandon this fic, I would make another, similar announcement.

Writing is hard now but I'm getting back into it, and hopefully when I next post a chapter, it will be even better than the last one.

Thanks to everyone who's stuck around for so long <3 Your support means the world to me.


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